From Where Ever I Am To You
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Summary: Padme finds herself trapped in an Imperial Prison, where her position as 'Lady Vader' both condemns and redeems her.
1. Suspension

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Author's Notes: First off, as always, thank you so much for bothering to look at my story. I'm glad you took the time. This is actually the second Star Wars fanfiction I ever put my fingers to the keys for... ^^; It's an inter-trillogy from Padme's point of veiw, and was greatly inspired by Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". I hope you enjoy!

-Meredith

Legal Disclaimer: Of course Star Wars isn't mine, do I look like a man with a beard to you? ^_~ 

In a galaxy far, far away,

Little Meredith had come to play,

She did love to write,

About the Force, dark or light,

So please give her feedback today!

'I'm reaching out to keep you from falling farther in'.

-The October Project

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From Where Ever I Am To You 1/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

http://www.demando.net/

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****

|Night|

They've given me a TypePad, which is a disappointment, and a luxury. I had hoped they'd bring me a few sheets of plasi-paper and a pen- the space would be limited, but it'd be easier to hide. I could slip them under the mattress, lay over them while I sleep. I've made my bed, now I'll lie in it. Instead, they've brought me a TypePad, a small one, with the keys all scrunched together on the tiny surface. Less limited space, yes, but it's harder to hide, more delicate. This, I will have to leave out in the open, or hide it someplace- they might find it. If they cared to, they could open this and read all I've put down- they could send it to the Emperor, have it searched for codes and secrets, or bring it out for entertainment. 

Maybe I'm reading too much into this. After all, who wants to read the ruminations of a dying woman?

That's what I am, a dying woman. Everyone one on this planet is dying, whether they admit it or not. In the eyes of the Empire, we are already dead. 

I take a deep breath, wait several seconds, a let it out. I breathe again, short this time, hurried, as if I'm running. And I am, I am- I'm just not moving. My thoughts chase themselves in circles, shout loudly to each other and threaten to drive me mad. Another breath, I am alive, my heart beats, my lungs flutter like butterflies lacking one wing. 

I appreciate this TypePad more now- who am I to complain? I can write, I can push these horrid, multi-circular thoughts out of my head. Why didn't I ask for one before? I wonder. I've been here three years. But then, if I had asked for something to write with early on, perhaps they would have denied it to me. I need this, someone to talk to, even if it's only someone of my imagining. They have gifted this to me, a companion, a pet almost, because of my position.

I suppose I should be grateful.

My fingers are flexing, itching almost painfully, I have so much I want to write down. I am a starving woman at a banquet, I want to gorge myself on words, on expression. I have to go slow though, I need to ration this, like everything else in my life. 

What is there to say, after all this time? Who can I address this to? Talking to myself is useless- I need to pretend (because there's little hope this will actually reach the right person) that someone I know, someday, somehow, will read this. I feel light, almost weightless, as if I'm falling. Only, I'm falling upward... rising like a spirit, for what is there to anchor me to my body now? 

I need someone to talk to.

Dare I hope that this might somehow reach you? It's like a call, long distance, from one end of the galaxy to another. A weak transmission. Would you even care, to hear what I have to say? I'd like to think you would, I need to believe that you would. So, Anakin, how are you sleeping these days?

****

|Day|

Outside my cell, I can hear the first shift on their way out to the fields. There isn't a window, of course, but the walls are thin enough that the sound carries. I have my own room, four walls I can call my own, and little bed. It's not a cot, like the others- or so they tell me. They like to remind me, occasionally, of who I am supposed to be. As if I'd forget. The bed is made of wood and could be antique, except its too basic for that. They pushed it up in one of the corners- it's boxy enough for that- and covered it with cotton sheets. It could be a child's bed, with little drawers set into the pedestal, and rounded head/footboards. They nailed the drawers shut before they put it in here, but the job was done poorly and if I could somehow pry one open I would have a place to hide this.

I could write more freely, then. 

That will be my new project. It's good to have small goals.

I have a glow lamp as well, though I don't turn it on unless I have to. They only recharge it every so often, and I don't want to be stranded in the dark. The lamp is sitting on the floor near my bed, which I have already made for the day. I sleep a great deal, usually, it offers an amazing escape. This planet has turned to its hot season, though, and the cotton sheets cling to me desperately. I become entangled in them, like a fly in a spider's web, and I can't get out. The panic that comes is often more frightening then the original fear, so sometimes I sleep on the cool stone floor. In my gray prisoner's robes, I imagine I look something like a puddle. A heap of humanity, a rag-doll, discarded by a disinterested child. Broken, perhaps?

No, no- I am many things, but I am not broken. 

Yet.

So, this is my room, the fruits of my privilege. This is my room, but it is also a waiting room. Here is where I wait, in a type of suspended purgatory. What is there to dread, or to anticipate? 

At least I have something to do- I need to count my blessings, horde them. I will be miserly, I can afford it. Boredom is one of the best tools for punishment. I used to lay on my back, on the floor, or on the bed in the winter, and do sit ups. One after another, after another, until I thought I might be sick from it. Compulsive exercising. But I could only do so much, or I'd start to bleed, the red fluid soaking into gray, a giant crimson stain, impossible to hide. The Stormtrooper's would spot it- they looked for that sort of thing- and march me down to the infirmary. The Medic Droid said I had lost enough blood, told them to make sure I sat still and let it heal. Sometimes I did it on purpose, at least it was somewhere to go. A little excitement in life. But, then I'd have to share my meager space for two days, staring at the white-helmeted troopers, who looked like statues, melting sculptures. They stared back, or I thought they did, through their black lenses. Did they look on my with pity? Disgust? ... Fear?

After a while, their blank, unreadable stares, began to remind me of you. The cold would creep up on me, then, along the back of my neck, a phantom caress. I'd close my eyes, go to sleep, or pretend to, in hopes that they would go away.

That was stupid. You're always here when I wake up, sleep never makes you go away, why should it work with them? 

Maybe I don't want you to go away.

I'd be so lonely.

****

|Night|

It's cooler now, but still so humid that I feel the air is almost a solid thing, hanging about like a cloak, or a heavy hand on my shoulder. I sit in the corner farthest from my bed, each shoulder touching a cool wall, hunched down like some old woman. I feel ancient, childless.

I need to remember that there are some things I shouldn't say. At least not until I get that drawer open. Suspended confession, then. 

I spoke with Courwyn, today. It's hard to imagine now, having a friend, even the most casual of acquaintances, but she is my friend. At least, right now. When the going gets tough, who knows? Or perhaps I should say, when the going becomes unbearable, because the going is already tough. Hard to chew, impossible to swallow. 

She reminds me of Obi-Wan, Courwyn does, just a little in the way she holds herself. She is a Baroness, or was, before she committed whatever crime has brought her here. Perhaps she is blameless, and the Emperor simply wanted her out of the way. But it's there, in her eyes, she has done something wrong, and she's not sorry. Like Obi-Wan, too, she likes to pretend that my position doesn't matter. She likes to think I'm on her level, and I like to think that too. I want to share a bunk with another woman, to have someone above or bellow me, someone who is also alive and can convince me I exist. Sometimes I wonder, I feel so formless. Memories draw me in all directions, to childhood, to adolescence, to happier times. It's like a tug of war. I may come apart at the seams.

The first time they let me out of the infirmary, after... after what happened, I sat next to Courwyn in the mess hall. The Stormtroopers moved me in, or herded me rather, because no officer ever touches me. Sometimes I almost wish they would, their respect makes me feel unclean. They sat me down at one of the nearest tables, pushed a tray in front of me. I was told to eat. Dinner it was, I think, because I was working the evening shift in vineyard. They wanted to keep me out of the sun, so I'd heal. They should know better than that. I could feel the eyes on me then, in the cafeteria, curious whispers. The touches of tiny, child-like fingers, looking me over. They knew who I was- who I wasn't. I felt like a witch, like a criminal. I felt guilty. 

"They call you Lady Vader," Courwyn said, as soon as the troopers moved away. She leaned towards me, just a little; I could see the edges of her dark hair from the corner of my eye. I tucked my feet underneath me, kneeling on the bench, head bent down, hands clasped in front of my tray. I stared down at the food, trying to remember how to make my voice work. To the others, I must have looked like I was praying.

Why bother?

"Do they?" I asked, my voice so soft I was afraid she hadn't heard me. She was the first person who'd chosen to speak to me. The others, the officers, the droids, did so when they were required to. Their words had no value. I could feel this woman's words like gold in my pockets, tiny gems.

"Yes," a whisper, much like my own. She leaned towards me a little, picked up her fork and shoved some food in her mouth. "Eat," she said, a bit harshly, "It will look less suspicious." 

Her voice came to me, but it was so far away, something over the horizon. I was farther back, at the beginning of the conversation. 'Lady Vader'. Surely, that had to mean something, it had to be a sign. It was like a phrase I didn't understand, and was trying to assign meaning by taking in the context.

I wasn't sure what to think. 

Finally, I managed to grip the fork in my hand, though a bit awkwardly. I don't know how long they fed me through tubes. The food, a mix of grains, was tasteless, but I rolled the texture around in my mouth in appreciation. I was hungry for some sensation other than pain. 

"How long have you been here?" I managed in-between bites. I hadn't realized how hungry I was, I couldn't stop eating.

"About a year," clipped tones, but not offended. I turned my face as much as I dared, tried to meet her gaze. "You?"

"I don't know," I replied, feeling lost in the maze of my own gaping memory. It was like something decayed, rusted, eaten away by agony. I realized, suddenly, that I smelled like bacta.

"Why?" she said it casually enough, but she must have been dying to ask it. It was there, in the way she paused, fork in the air. They didn't give us knives. Around me, the dull hum of conversation, like an engine, seemed to have stalled. I wondered what Courwyn would tell the others, later. Surely they would want to know, certainly she would recount our conversation. I can't imagine what they thought of me. 

Victim? Monster? 

The Stormtroopers had forced us up from our seats and into three lines. Courwyn stood behind me, just slightly taller, leaned over me a little, waiting to hear what I would say. I angled back as much as I could stand, for the position stretched the wound on my abdomen. I brushed my short chopped hair away, aiming voice where I wanted it to go.

"Politics," it seemed banal, but it was true as far as I was concerned. As far as I knew. I could feel her eyes on me then, wondering, and I felt pathetic. The anger came quickly after that. I was angry at you. It thrust a tint over my world then, crimson, like blood, like a weapon, the color of Naboo Morning Flowers, falling as their blooms are cut with sheers. I continue this anger even now, half-heartedly, because it requires effort, it requires that I suspend disbelief. It always passes quickly, though, replaced by sadness. That wasn't Anakin, my mind argued, argues to this day, you didn't see his eyes, you have no proof.

I know it in my bones, though, and that is the worst part. 

There was a slight pressure on my shoulder, so brief I thought I'd imagined it. Then I realized it had been Courwyn, her hand on my shoulder. To what end? When I deposited my tray in the wash bin, I gazed on her in some surprise. She smiled, as much as she remembered how to. 

"From one widow to another," she answered, trying to be cocky. I could almost see her as she must have been in that former life- the one before the camp and its all embracing metal walls. She must have had spunk, fire, spirit- she must have been so very pretty. I nodded then, bowing my head, and tried to return her smile. It was harder than I thought. How many women, then, must imagine their husbands dead, lest they be forced to face the truth? 

Politics.

I was very good at it once.

For some time, I did not see Courwyn, but others gave me evidence of her friendship. They nodded to me, or let me stand ahead of them in line for water. An older woman steadied me when I almost fell. During one of my first days in the field, a Nubian girl helped me to fill my basket. I treasure these too, these small kindnesses, to remind myself that I am human. Your shadow has not fallen over me completely, or that shadow of what you are now. Why can't I escape the idea that you are truly dead and there is someone else living in your body? Darth Vader is not real to me. 

It's amazing what denial can do.

Lady Vader can not be real either, then. The existence of one proves the existence of the other- it's a type of co-dependency. In my mind, she is someone else, a dark girl, tall and cold. Made of marble, perhaps. I must share my room, my waiting room, with her. Me, myself and I. She is like a shadow, neither dark nor light, lacking substance. Lady Vader. I've said it, once or twice, when I'm sure no one can hear me. It's like a secret code, an incantation, a spell of sorts. Black magic. I can't use it, though, it's heavy on my tongue, difficult to force past my lips. Too heavy, and hard to move around in.

****

|Night|

I can sleep in my bed again. This is how I measure time now, by discomforts, by the amount of pain I must endure. Time is fluid here, running down the walls, the backs of my legs. The fresher's for the prisoners don't have real water, it's another thing they hold over us. Water is a privilege, not to be wasted, handed out in tiny cups, to those of us that behave well. 

It's a public thing, the trips to the fresher. All of us, in one long room, bodies bared, a communal nudity. We are not alone, of course, they never leave us alone. But the Stormtoopers seem more ridiculous then, standing by the door. In the hazy air, we can become goddesses, the kind engraved on the walls of some of the older buildings on Coruscant. Maybe they are embarrassed, they all seem so young that its almost possible. Perhaps they avert their gazes, beneath their unreadable masks, while their ears burn and burn. They could also very well enjoy it, as much as we do, but for different reasons. For them its cheap, a peep show. For us, it's freedom- there are no gray prisoner's robes to define us, we are bare, we are real and made of flesh. We do not look at the troopers while we bathe, they can not lessen our power. Instead, we look at each other, an academic study. Portraits in skin. 

The air is always charged, with fear, with anticipation- here is where we can get the most information from one another. A grape-vine, women strung together, like sexless charms on a necklace. I had one of those when I was younger.

You can always tell which ones are mothers, or were mothers. I too, place my hands over the small, remaining bulge. Though it's empty now, if I close my eyes I can recapture that fullness, that sense of being a shelter. My heart beat was thunder to them, way off in the distance. I look at the others, those among them that have carried as I have carried, and I want so desperately to talk to them. Surely they too must feel the pain, must wake at night wondering, hoping there is someone there to tuck their babies in, to keep them warm and tell them a story. 

How old are they now?

Whatever power we have, or think we have, in the freshers is dangerous. They shot a woman today, out in the groves. The girl standing under the unit next to mine told me, in that low, aimed whisper we use amongst ourselves. If we're not careful, they begin to think we're in collusion, planning to escape. But where would we go?

I don't even know what planet I'm on.

"What did she do?" I asked, moving my hands through my short hair, trying to shake loose the dirt. I'd already cut it, in the time before, right after you disappeared Never once did I believe you were dead, I could feel you, your heart beat, in my inner-most self. I took the scissors to my hair, though, because no one would believe me. Or, perhaps, they kept insisting because they had something they wanted me to believe instead. The Jedi Counsel is not beyond reproach in my mind. Surely Obi-Wan knew something, it was in every move he made, the way he'd stare at me when he thought I couldn't see it. I dressed in black, my hair wild, framing my face. A rounded triangle. 

I could have been your shadow. I didn't know it, then.

"She'd been out in the sun too long, I guess," the girl said after a pause. She'd turned around to give her left leg some attention. Her hands scrubbed against the long, red scar twisting up the side, "She pitched forward in line, one of the Stormtoopers was nearby and they thought she had a weapon. Shot her right there, didn't even set it for stun." I shuddered, passing my hand over the bottom of by rib cage, almost without thinking. The girl eyed my scar with an air of approval.

"Did you know her?" I whispered.

"No. No one did. She was new."

It's easy to forget, sometimes, how much danger we walk with daily. This is a political prison, we are political prisoners. We still have, or had, some power left which bargained us into this position. As bad as it is, it could be much worse. 

Sometimes I wonder where the fruit we pick goes. The Emperor, probably. It's all very expensive, very exotic. Our hands are covered with sores from the thorns, as nimble as our fingers are, we can never quite navigate past them. 

"I'd like to spit on these things," Courwyn said, the one time we had the same shift, "Or take a bite out of it."

"Don't," I said, feeling shame at my lack of bravery, "Besides, it's not like it'll actually reach him. He has droids, scanners, the whole bit. Only the best. He's very vain." I snatched another pair of Corellian Lamplights from the tree, handed the ripe red orbs down the ladder to Courwyn. She eyed me strangely as she took them from.

"You sound as if you know him," there was a little accusation in her tone then. Guilt fell around me, heavy, like my funeral shroud, making it hard to see. I scratched my arms on several thorns before I managed to pick any more fruit. What was there that I could say? I should have seen it- it's my fault, I was too trusting, too childish, too focused on the present, disregarding the future.

"He's the Emperor," I said quietly, as if that explained it. And it did.

And that under-current of suspicion is always there with us, suspended like a wall between myself and Courwyn, or anyone I am talking to. Do they wonder if I will suddenly change, turn on them? 

I understand that completely. 

****

|Harvest Day 1|

I try not to write in this too often. It's hard, I feel like a cup of words, filled to the point where all I want to do is let them spill over the side. But I only have so much space on this thing, and I would be afraid to ask for another. Who knows how long my favor will hold out, who knows how far your name will carry me? I don't want to push the limit, for there may come a time when I do need something. How will I feel then, if I have wasted what little power I have?

The shifts are longer now, I'm more tried than usual. It's harvest, the height of the planet, and you can feel it. The air is ripe, heady and waiting. Everyone, even the troopers, seem a little more relaxed, as if the warmth has stolen into their suits and thawed their bones. This is the best time, chances are everywhere, to find, to buy, to trade information. A five day window; far too short, but what else have I got?

I can't get the drawer open. I've spent hours, as much time as I dare, pulling, prying with my fingers. Maybe they did a better job with it than I thought, or I am not as strong as I used to be. Which is true. If I had something, a fork, or maybe even a spoon, I could use it as a lever. A knife would be impossible- they never give us those. We don't even get sheers to cut the branches with. Everything done by us is done by our hands. The droids working in the west field, the unsafe field, get sheers. I envy them their blades, flashing in the sunlight, coming together, cutting off. A violent union. I really want a pair, so much that when we're marched past the droids I can barely breathe. The sheers wouldn't work on the drawer, though.

That's not what I want them for anyway.

Our shifts have been lengthened, consolidated. There are three shifts now, instead of five, and we eat only in the evenings. The portions are bigger, though, and because this is a special season, we are allowed in the larger cafeteria, with the officers. This is a treat for us, held out like a gift, for even we must be a appeased at times. The officers sit on the other side of a barrier- don't think that they wouldn't segregate us- but we know that they are there. We don't talk amongst ourselves now, not a one of us can afford it. From behind the partition, we can hear bits and pieces from the holo-broadcast, the news as translated from Coruscant. Translated, of course, because it's not really what is happening. They must change it a little, heighten the victories, lessen the defeats, or else hide them all together. Still, there must be some truth, hidden in the propaganda. A type of code; believe only the third thing you hear, or every other. Of course it's not as simple as that. Collectively we strain to hear, cursing the officers, the troopers, who talk amongst themselves. It's like wasting food, the way they disregard information.

We are starved for it.

I listen carefully, with the twin emotions of eagerness and dread. Antithesis has become a way of life. Will I hear something about you, in these holo-casts, or are you something that exists underneath the things they tell us? Undercover, out of sight, something feared but not seen? Out of sight, out of mind.

That's not true.

I'd like to hear something, to know you exist. I would hold it close, that bit of information, take it out and look it over when I'm alone. Turn it over, view it from every angle, ponder it as I once pondered those insane crystal puzzles of my childhood. I could try to translate it, go over every word. 

Also, I don't want to hear about you, for fear that there is nothing to decode. That what they say about you is true. It would be hard to ignore, I would have to work at it. Probably, it is all true.

From a certain point of view, Obi-Wan would say. 

I wonder what the others listen for. News of a brother, a sister, a son or daughter? Someone in the Imperial ranks, perhaps- waiting for the next atrocity, the next betrayal? Or in the rebellion, praying that the loved one is still alive, still fighting while they can?

Oh, if they must die, let it be quick.

Do you know, what I did- or helped to do? Helped, yes, because no one can ever do something that large alone. Does it annoy you, when and if the rebels foil the Emperor's plans? Yours too, for you have made yourself an extension of him. Have you thought of me, when the Rebellion undoes what you try to do? I want you think of me, I want the Rebellion to be a thorn in your side.

That is my legacy. Part of it.

A Jedi does not take revenge, but I am not a Jedi. Maybe this isn't a revenge, it's not personal enough. What I want isn't revenge.

I don't know what I want.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Email me at:

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

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mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

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Please? ^_^;


	2. Look The Other Way

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From Where Ever I Am To You 2/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

septembers0demon@crosswinds.net

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|Harvest Day 4|

Tomorrow I am going to steal something. A fork. Not sheers, I'm not as

ambitious as all that. Certainly, I will need to be careful. It's a risk,

but a calculated one, and who can live like this without taking risks? I

want to last, or I say I do, but there's no use in lasting as a coward.

Better to go down fighting.

You said that once. Did you mean it?

You're closer to me now, I think. It's as if we are two planets, whose

orbits are elliptical, crossing closely, then briefly, then not at all. I

catch glimpses of you, occasionally, but it's always through someone else's

eyes. I can't trust that.

They talked about you tonight, on the holo-cast. I almost missed it, I'd

let my mind wander from the endless string of supposed victories, then the

society segment. Countess So-and-So wed the Lord of Such-and-Such House. No

one I knew, at least not enough to make them real. They said your name, not

your real one, but the one you use now, and I raised my head quickly. I

forced my gaze into a tunnel vision, seeing only the brown of the table in

front of me, because I could feel the eyes all over my body, waiting for a

reaction. They wanted to know, those women, just exactly how I feel about

you. How can I explain it to them when I don't even know myself? I listened

as best I could, but there was a roaring in my ears I couldn't get past. The

reporters were only setting the scene, though. They'd mentioned your name to

get our attention.

It worked.

I looked up, saw that there was only one Stormtrooper. The other had

probably ducked out for a glass of water- they do that sometimes- and the

remaining one had his back to me. I stood as quietly as I could, turned

around. My table was closest to the partition, I'd had my back to it. A few

steps, then I pressed my ear against the grainy surface of the barrier,

listening. It was if the wall was whispering to me, telling me alone, but I

know that's not so. We all heard it, every one of us. Public testimony. The

voice from the holo-cast had a little tone now, it was getting to the meat

of the ordeal. The center, around which everything had hardened. It was a

man's voice, saying something about an uprising on Erntria.

Very matter of fact, "One hundred men and women killed by order of Lord

Vader."

I felt hands under my arms, hushed voices, a collective murmur of pity or

disbelief. There was a woman on either side of me, lifting me back to my

seat. I had blacked out, I suppose, crumbled to the floor. Possibly, I'd

died.

"Hey," I was sitting then, some one was shaking me, "Come on, honey. Stay

here, get a hold of yourself. It's not going to do you any good." I nodded,

groping blindly for the hand I knew was being held out to me, gripped onto

it as forcefully as I dared. I tilted my face, staring up at the ceiling. If

I had been outside, if it had been raining, I might have drowned.

I would have liked that.

Possibly my desire to steal, my need to rebel in some small way, has been

forced to the surface by that incident. Recklessness, self-destruction, all

rolled into one. I don't know what they'd do if they caught me, it's just a

fork, but I've been punished for less.

If I am writing this to you, if I am pretending that you will someday see

this, then I am free to ask you what I please.

I want to ask you now; Is it worth it?

|Night|

I not not childless! I have children, two of them, a boy and a girl. Small,

perfect, with wide, questioning eyes and arms that used to cling to me. I

was a mother, am a mother. No one can take that from me. They are alive now,

they must be, such care was taken to hide them. They are a part of us, a bit

of Anakin and some of Amidala, two jeweled eggs sitting in the ashes.

Something has to rise out of all this destruction.

Again, I must slow myself, pace myself, stop the words from flowing over.

The guards outside must wonder what it is I type with such fervor. No matter

now- I pried the drawer open. It took me longer than I thought, to work up

the courage to steal the fork. They moved me to early morning shift, for the

few days we have of planting for next spring. That made it easier, I could

take my forbidden tool straight back to my room, not feel the weight of it

as I tried to work in the fields.

I slept on it the first night, hiding it under my mattress. I didn't dare

use it right away, in case they noticed it was missing. They might count the

utensils, I do not consider them beyond anything. I was careful, as careful

as I could be. I waited until the guards switched shifts, right in the

middle of sleep cycle. It wakes me, I always hear them anyway, the sound of

their boots on the stone floor carries. I'd slide out of bed, ever so

slowly, slip my hand under the mattress, hunting for the fork. There was a

large gap between the heads of the nails and the board, a sloppy job on one

side of the drawer, and I would wedge the fork underneath. The first time I

broke the prongs, so I took care to use the thick end of the handle. I

didn't concentrate on any single nail, but worked a little on each, dividing

my attention.

I had to work at this for ten nights on end. The nails had been in there

for a while, they'd rusted and did not want to come out. I worked a little

each night, as much as I could. It's hard to judge the Stormtroopers, their

masks make them soulless. I suppose you know all about that. Without an

expression to read, I don't know if they suspect, or if they even think at

all. A nail popped out the third night, without warning. The force of it

threw my hand away, and in the dim light of my glow lamp, the nail became a

shooting star. Rusted as it was, it still glittered slightly, arching

through the air, utterly futile. It landed on the floor, the sound of glass

wind-chimes, of a breaking chalice. I felt like I could shatter then, a

million tiny pieces, waiting in utter silence. No sound from outside. I

retrieved the nail, held it up in the light. The end had been blunted, or

broken when I removed it. I put that under the mattress too, I might find

some use for it. Finally, I pried loose all the nails from one side. They

were all damaged, in some way or another. Even the sharpest ones wouldn't

do, they were not strong enough, and I want a quick escape. Lingering would

do me no good, someone would find me, before it's finished. It wouldn't do,

either, to have scratches on my wrist, to be seen by others.

Evidence of failure.

Opening the drawer was easy enough, after that. I used the rough edges of

the nails to scratch finger-holds for myself. It made enough noise though,

when I opened it, and I was sure I'd already been caught. The track squeaked

in protest, rolled the container out onto my ankle by mistake. I don't know

how long I sat there, heavy weight against my leg, feeling as though I'd be

severed. It was worth it, though. I pulled the drawer all the way out, set

it to the side. The bottom of the box-spring is covered in mesh, and I cut

that with the nails too. The space is big enough that I can slip this

inside. There's no way they'll find it, even if they move the bed.

I can speak freely now. It's hard to remember what that's like.

So, where do I start, exactly? To tell this sordid thing from the beginning

is a luxury I don't have. It's in pieces all around me, anyway, the memories

cut like broken glass when I try to pick them up. Not even I can recount my

fall from grace, the fall from knowledge to ignorance- though I may know

more now than I did before. I was a Queen once, if you can believe that. I

was a Senator, I was a wife, a mother. The whole thing was like a runaway

speeder, one betrayal after another, with the navigation panel shot. I

didn't know where I was going.

"I die every time you do it." Your mother said that. Do you remember? I

understood her, at last, because I'd hear the whispers. Jedi Training Center

on Bespin, gone- quick and clean. The details were you, down to the last

drop. I wouldn't believe it though. I wasn't alone in my denial, and that

made it easier. The council pretended you were dead, Obi-Wan tip-toed around

the whole affair, looking blank-eyed at the mention of your name. I began to

withdraw, slowly, from political life. Any meeting that couldn't be avoided

was orchestrated by Sabe`, acting in my name. The Emperor- though he wasn't

calling himself that yet- had just cemented his power,but he hadn't played

his trump card yet. We all waited in suspended animation, convinced we

couldn't move until we knew what he was up to.

By then it was too late.

It wasn't just myself I was thinking of, though- I had my children to look

after. Then I had my child to look after. Maybe I don't want to write this

down after all. Writing it down makes it true.

I actually didn't get to know Luke very well.

My chambers reeked of it, the crime, when I came home. I'd been out for the

afternoon, for what I can no longer remember, but it was something that

required my true presence. Something to do with the Rebellion, then, for I

was playing cat and mouse with the Imperials. Sabe` had been playing the

decoy for months- and she was good at it too- I'm not sure if anyone really

noticed the difference. Except the Emperor, except you, and that was what

counted. I hated being confined, hidden away, like some secret. I felt

tucked under the rug. How was I to know that those were happy times? I had

my children, my twins. During the long daylight hours, when it was dangerous

to move around and possibly be seen, I'd sit in bed with the twins and help

them build towers out of small crystalline blocks. Leia was never interested

in building, though, she wanted to look at the prisms. I see them now, held

aloft by her small, chubby fingers, making rainbows in the pale sunlight. I

couldn't tell the difference, but she regarded each as individual. She'd

take them and hide them, sometimes five at a time, under the sheets and away

from Luke.

He liked to try and figure out where she'd put them- finding them was the

game, not the retrieval.

Sometimes I read to them. Bail brought me- partly as a gift and partly as a

peace offering - a small book of legends from different worlds. I avoided

the ones I knew, the ones from Tatooine, telling myself I wanted to share

that first-glimpse wonder with my children. I must have known,

subconsciously, what had happened to you. Was happening. I was cutting

myself off, even then, from the parts of you that were human. Maybe I

somehow hoped it would make it easier to face the truth.

Well, that didn't work.

Obi-Wan was there when I opened the door, which was only something of a

surprise, I thought that he had been visiting Sabe`. My handmaid had stayed

behind with the twins, but even knowing they were in her care I still felt

nervous. I didn't like leaving them.

"Hello," I said distractedly, looking towards the door to my bedroom, which

doubled as a nursery. I was straining to hear whether or not the twins had

been put down for their nap. Silence from the Jedi at my side, and I finally

turned to look at him, my nervousness reaching its peak. It was there, in

his eyes, in the way he stood between the door and myself, a blockade. There

came a soft, strangled sound, like air escaping a punctured balloon. That

was me, my small, irrelevant sound of denial. I pushed past Obi-Wan roughly,

threw open the door to my room. Sabe` was draped across the bed, almost

artfully- she must have been drugged. My hands grabbed for the bars of the

double crib, pulling my body forward, propelling my face to look inside.

Leia gazed up at me, red eyed, exhausted from crying, flailing her arms

uselessly. She would forget later, but she knew then what had been taken

from her. She was only a little more than a year old. I picked her up,

cradling her closely, almost painfully, as I whirled to face Obi-Wan.

Luke was gone.

"Where is he?" I spat. I hated him then, the man who'd been my friend and

almost-mentor for more than ten years. I wanted to rip his throat out. There

was no way he could know, he was a man, there was no way he could know what

he'd done.

"Luke is in good hands, Amidala," my full name, so patronizing.

"How *could* you!?" I held Leia more tightly, because if I didn't I would

claw the Jedi to death. Anger burned in me then, more than I had for you,

because you had not solidified. I had no proof of you, yet. Obi-Wan's

betrayal cut to the bone, lodged there.

"We need to keep him safe, you know that," he'd begun to pace, looking at

me with eyes that implored my forgiveness. He had no right.

"He was safe with me!" I roared. Leia wiggled in my arms, frightened, but

too drained to cry out.

"What if something happens to you?" he challenged.

"You think he'll be safe where you put him? They won't know how to look

after him!"

"I will watch after him," Obi-Wan retorted. I saw then that it had come out

without him willing it to. That statement gave him away.

My voice trembled, swelled, there wasn't room enough in it for all my rage,

"You do know where he is! I hate you..," I was shaking then, tears streaming

down my face, erasing my mask. The emptiness was overwhelming, I thought I

might implode, become a Black Hole and devour with the force of my loss. I

felt as though I might simply disappear, "Oh, oh..." I felt so weak, so

angry, there were no words for it. My crying prompted Leia to howl, as she

surely must have howled when Obi-Wan took Luke from the crib. The Jedi

stepped forward a bit, extended his hand as if to comfort. "Don't touch me!"

I screamed, "Get out, get out, I never want to see you again!"

I held Leia for a long time after that, afraid to let go, afraid she too

would vanish. Sabe` woke a little later, and cried for the first time I'd

seen in years. It was her fault, she said, for not suspecting. She'd trusted

Obi-Wan too much. I tried to comfort her, but my own grief was so great, it

was hard to do anything but turn inwards on myself. I want to see Sabe`

again, so I can tell her I know it wasn't her fault.

I had Leia with me for a few more months.

Thank the Force for small mercies.

I still don't know where Luke is.

|Night|

Winter now, in earnest. Cold washing over the stone floor like a flood, not

a comforting cold but a hard one, solid. In the summer, the floor almost

feels like water, and if I lay on it long enough I think I can sink into it.

Frost is growing, like invading vines, or poisonous flowers, in the corners

of my room. It's almost impossible to imagine that it was unbearably hot

some time ago. Some time, everything is some vague measure of time. The only

estimate I have is the rise and fall of the sun, but my nights run together,

multiply until they are too numerous to count. We don't go outside now,

anyway, so I have no way of knowing if the sun has come at all. If I were to

go beyond these walls, there is every chance I wouldn't be able to see it,

anyway, through the clouds. That would never do, I'd think the sun is gone

forever.

Is it warm where you are? I know you hate the cold.

Possibly the light is simply hidden.

This planet is a place of extremes- it doesn't pussy foot around anything.

I like the cold, harsh as it is. Sometimes, in the haziness of half sleep, I

think I've become a thing of ice, that the frost has closed around me in a

type of diamond coffin. On Tatooine, the carnival would come right after the

best season, when the traders and moisture farmers were in a good mood, and

set up stop in Mos Eisley. One of the attractions they'd show was a large

block of ice, kept in a cold room that must have cost a fortune to maintain.

It wasn't simply ice, though that is enough of a wonder in the desert. Some

artist had carved the ice into the shape of the a woman, all curves and

frozen movement. Beauty preserved forever, but utterly barren. That's what

they'd call the attraction- 'The Most Beautiful Woman in the Galaxy'.

You told me about that, and in your eyes I could see the memory. Yourself,

just a few years younger than when I first knew you, face pressed up against

the glass. You said you saw me in there.

I think I could be her.

In the winter they put us to work indoors, sorting parts for the field

droids that need repairing. It's surprising how many of them break; I wonder

what type of work they do. Are the thorns on their plants sharper than ours,

larger, smarter? That's the job of a thorn, you know, to protect the plant,

to outsmart the invader. You should see them- the droids- after the harvest

is over. Limbs (not arms, because they have more than two) broken off in

places, wires sticking out, motors clogged, begging attention. Theirs must

be a hard job, and I feel sorry for them. They're programmed, they couldn't

stop even if they wanted to, even if they're about to damage themselves. I

do know that the fruit they pick is poison to most species, until warmed to

the right temperature.

Isn't that risky? I'd be afraid to eat it, even if it had been cooked

properly, because you never can tell.

|Rest Period|

It's become even colder now, if that's possible. I've been given a heavier

blanket (which I was given the pervious winters) and a small heater, which

is new. I wonder what I have done to deserve this, this reward. Surely it

must be that, no one else has a heater. Sometimes I wish they wouldn't give

me these things, these extras. I am no better or worse than any other woman

here. I just have the coincidence of being your wife. Of having been.

Did you think I was going to say 'unfortunate'?

Then I feel even more guilty, because I appreciate the heater. I've hooked

it onto the headboard, it's amazing what a little thing like that can do.

It's too small to help the floor though, and that is one plight I share with

all the other prisoners. The shoes we wear are not really shoes at all- more

like soft-soled leather slippers. In the summer, they are a grave relief,

but now they become another risk. I've taken the cotton sheet, the one I use

in the summer, and torn two strips from it, to wrap around my feet. It isn't

much, but it lessens the frostbite. Last year a woman died of the cold-

hypothermia, they said it was, in their own cold way.

"Her bunkmate found her," said Courwyn, whispering to me in the fresher.

"No body noticed it at first," she said, in a way that told me she'd been

there, though not directly involved. Courwyn was standing under the unit to

my left, working her hands through her ebony curls. I almost stopped what I

was doing, to listen, but I remembered what that could be interpreted as.

"We were all in a hurry to get the beds made, get our robes on. The troopers

get annoyed if we dally, you know," Courwyn went on, then paused

expectantly. I nodded to show that yes, I did know. "The girl had the top

bunk, and Anshii- that's the girl who shared with her- realized that the

girl's robe was still hanging there, and that she wasn't even awake. Anshii

didn't say anything, she just wanted to get the girl out of bed. It'd be bad

for both of them if the troopers came and things were left undone. She

climbed up on the ladder and started shaking the other girl, slow at first

and then really hard. Anshii thought the girl had just gone into herself,

like some of them do."

"They do?" Then I did pause, if only for a moment. One of the Stormtoopers

turned my way, and I bent down, pretending to wash my legs. I shouldn't have

said it so loud, but my curiosity had peaked a little. I wasn't the only

one, then, overwhelmed by the desire to live inside memories. The color is

so much brighter, there.

"Hell, yeah," Courwyn muttered, then eyed me sharply. "Don't even think

about it. You know what they do with cases like that?" I squeezed my eyes

shut, desperately, not wanting to hear it but knowing I needed to. It would

discourage me. "They use 'em. Even Stormtroopers need bribes, you know. Most

of them don't have girlfriends to go home to, and if they do they barely get

to see them. One of us goes too far in, it's like an open invitation. After

all, the girl doesn't put up a fight."

Silence stretched between us. My stomach had forced itself up somewhere in

my throat; my mind conjured up a threatening image of what that might be

like. To be a doll, empty, with no soul- an instrument, valued for its

usefulness only, not for emotion, or even beauty. I felt hungry, I needed to

eat to prove myself alive.

"What happened, to the girl?" I prompted. Courwyn looked up, almost

startled. Perhaps she had been experiencing the same vision. She cleared her

throat, once twice, like something had caught there.

"That's when I heard Anshii scream. Seems that the girl's lips had turned

blue, or her eyes were open, or something really obvious. I was already on

my way over with another girl, thank the Maker we'd both gotten up a little

before the bell, so we had our beds already made. Anshii had fallen down the

ladder and was sitting on the floor crying. I looked over the railing, felt

for the girl's pulse. Dead cold, you wouldn't believe it. Like a block of

ice." I shivered, even in the warmth of the fresher. At least they keep it

warm in there.

I think about it sometimes, before I go to sleep. I draw the heavy blanket

over myself, use what's left of my cotton sheet as a shawl. I cross my arms

over my breasts, wonder if I will wake up in the morning. Who would find me?

A Stormtrooper, most likely, not someone who would scream or cry. I have the

heater now, I shouldn't have to worry about it.

I'm not sure how I feel about that.

|Night|

Today, we had snow. Falling from the pitch black sky, lit only from the

pale glow of the cafeteria, resting against the sky-lights. Eventually it

covered them all together, no more darkness, just blank white. I think about

snow now, on Coruscant it was a rare and beautiful thing. The technical

crews were always so certain they'd mastered the weather of our city-planet,

beaten it into submission; but every once in a while something unexpected

would happen, as if to prove we did not have control after all. Or it might

only have been the planet stirring from its slumber, reminding us that it

was a live thing in its own way. Sometimes I think it was waiting for us to

go away.

Thunderstorms were the most common of anomalies. Snow was more unusual, but

I can remember a few times. Something of a miracle, that, to have snow

happen on Coruscant. I think about the tiny white flakes, catching the

lights of buildings that dotted the sky. Normally these lights were merely

pretty- but the snow made them beautiful. I think about walking with you, in

the central pavilion, arms linked, both of us gazing up at the sky. I wore

less elaborate gowns, because it was our time together and I wanted no

complications. Over that I had a cape, trimmed in fake fur, which you always

said made me look unreal.

The whole thing was unreal, you said, frozen water from the sky. Think of

it!

I do, and then I think of the snow from a different view. Falling past my

window, collecting on the sill, making little shadows across the carpeting

and my hair. My own hair, long and in wavy ringlets, spread over the

carpeting because we could not wait long enough to make it to the bed.

The snow never lasted long.

It was not snowing the day I received the summons. Nor was it raining,

though I always think of rain- I must have added that in. This is the way it

always is, I think of happy times, with you, and then I think of something

else. Something that cancels it out. It wasn't raining, but it was gray. A

shadow had fallen over the sky. I know because I could see it through the

large bay window in Bail's suite. I had moved in with him then, though we were

never alone, and it was certainly nothing more than a sanctuary for me. It

would be easier to hide there, Sabe` reasoned, Palpatine would not want to

make enemies of the Alderaan senators, he would not send soldiers for me.

She was right, to a degree. He did not send Stormtroopers, but he sent his

personal summons, which is the same thing. Bail was not home, and the

message was hand-written, delivered by a man in Imperial uniform. The door

slipped shut, Sabe` handed the sheet of plasi-paper to me without even

looking at it, though she must have been thinking the same as I.

This is it, I thought.

I unfolded it, held it up to the light, viewed the inky black words with

trepidation.

"What does it say?" Sabe`'s voice, risen to a pitch of fear I'd never heard

before. I had turned away from her without meaning to, sat down heavily on

the window seat. Through the doorway, I could see Leia sitting on the floor

in the kitchen, looking at her prisms. She had less enthusiasm for them, now

that Luke was gone. I shook my head, turned to look out at the gray sky. I

felt Sabe` take the plasi-paper from my hands, and I let her. Moments later,

I felt her embrace me, but for all I was worth I simply could not return it.

Apathy seeped into my bones, I raised my eyes to hers, hoping she

understood. She seemed to.

I was still sitting there, when Bail come home. Leia had crawled over to

me, was playing with the sash of my nightdress. It had been morning when the

summons arrived, now it was evening. I hadn't moved all day.

Bail said, harshly, "Come away from the window." I did not answer. I'm not

even sure I heard him, he might have told me he said that. "Amidala, someone

is going to see you!"

"It doesn't matter," I said, as if I myself couldn't quite believe it. I

heard, rather than saw, him approach me, reach down and pick up the

plasi-paper. He read it out loud- he didn't mean to be heartless.

"Senator Amidala of the Naboo will have audience with His Majesty at twenty

hundred tomorrow evening." Simplistic, deadly, as most things are. At least

Palpatine didn't word it as if I had a choice. I heard the plasi-paper being

crumbled, but it sounded like a window being broken, in my own ears. I did

not look at Bail- he would be angry, or upset, I knew him well enough.

"Ami-", I looked up sharply, and he finished the name. All of it. I did not

let it pass that he had tried to use it, though, your name for me. For a

moment we looked at each other; Bail stubborn, myself hurting, Leia in

between- oblivious. How grateful I am that she was so young then. Even if it

means she will not remember me.

I felt something fall into my lap. Bail had knelt beside me, put his arms

around my waist, his head in my lap. It seemed to numb the lower part of my

body. I felt removed. I looked down without moving my head, saw Bail gazing

up at me. It came to me that he wasn't staring at me, but at my wedding

ring, suspended between my breasts by a small gold chain. The nightgown was

cut low enough; blue silk, with gold fret work. It had been a wedding

present. I moved my hand up, felt my fingers brush the small gold ring. A

circle. It was supposed it symbolize continuity. It was supposed to mean

something that doesn't end. I had taken it off my finger, but I wasn't able

to get rid of it, either. They'd started telling me things about you,

horrible things. They were true, I knew that much. There was no denying it.

I hadn't seen you yet, though. Or whatever it is that pretends to be you.

I said, "He will be there."

"The Emperor..." Bail began.

"No," I looked away again, disappointed. So far, Bail and I had been able

to work our friendship around this. I said it again, "He will be there." A

sigh, the weight removed from my lap, arms pulling away. Bail sat back,

slightly away from me, on the floor. I looked down to the place he had been,

imagining you there instead. The image was not hard to conjure, I had

memories to back it up. I envisioned you, as I still do now, as you were in

the time before. Brown-blond hair chopped off just bellow the ears, bright

blue eyes, a small scar on you chin from one mission or another. I have

stopped you at this age, so that I will not have to think about what comes

after.

The feeling came back into my legs, so I stood, and Leia clamored to be

picked up. I held her in my arms, let her lean against me. She thrust her

thumb in her mouth and her free hand into my hair, closed her eyes

contentedly. Bail too, was standing, waiting for me to move.

"You shouldn't go," he said at last.

"How can I not?" I began to pace, glancing up on occasion.

"We can smuggle you out," his words were coming quickly, his eyes following

my movement, "A group of politicals are leaving tonight, you could go with

them."

"And jeopardize their safety?" I asked, my voice tight. Mon Mothma had

taken great care to cover the mission, but my presence would act like a

beacon. Mind blocks or no mindblocks, I knew you would be able to find me,

if you really wanted to. You were simply waiting. As long as you knew where

I was, you could do things in your own sweet time. The Emperor must have

forced your hand at something, then.

"I'll take care of it," Bail snapped, which meant; "I'm going to do it

anyway." He continued, "You can get sanctuary on Alderaan, I'll arrange it

myself. We should have done this earlier. I don't know why you insisted on

staying here." He moved towards the computer, as if he intended to take of

all the arrangements in one foul swoop.

"He'll come after me," my voice was quiet, but it carried. I was working on

logic only now, my emotions had been severed. Like a limb, laying on the

floor in a pool of blood. Amputated.

I had Bail's full attention. He knew that what I was saying was true. You

would come after me, there was prior evidence to back it up. It was always

like that between Bail and I, everything needed proof, reference, like the

essays of my youth.

"Then we can..."

"You can't stop me from going." The two sounds overlapped, became one

noise. I sat down on the sculpted white couch- all Alderaanian furniture is

sculpted, fluid- shifting Leia's weight in my arms. She had fallen asleep at

one point, the pacing motion must have soothed her. Tomorrow, I would see

you. I heard my heart beating, pumping blood; open, close, open, close. I

didn't know what to expect. Bail came, took the seat beside me, put his hand

over mine.

He said, "I'll take care of Leia."

I said, "I can put her to bed."

That's not what he meant.

Bail was very fond of Leia. There were times I would wake up from my naps

(I had stopped sleeping through the night, and inside spaced out my rest

throughout the day) to find him playing with her, or reading her a story,

teaching her a new way to stack the prisms. He had already adopted her, or

allowed her to adopt him. Leia was an affectionate baby, but she made an

attachment to Bail that was different from her relationship with my other

friends, the other people in her life. I am glad, now, that I have always

thought Bail would make a good father. He will protect Leia, if it becomes

necessary, when the time comes. We were passing her off as the daughter of

his secretary, who'd died in one of the riots. There were a lot of riots,

that's how hot things were. The public areas were unsafe, even during the

day. Palpatine may have cemented his political power, but the public was

another matter altogether. It always has been. We had the birth certificate

made- Leia's, she hadn't had one previously- almost right away. The

Rebellion had already seeped into the ranks of the Empire, though we were

careful to make sure that they stayed where they were. Bail adopted her

immediately, and planned to send her back to Alderaan when... when...

Well, just when. That was where the conversation ended. Always.

Maybe Bail expected me to marry him, at some future date, so that I could

stay with Leia, though now I find it difficult to believe he could have

faith in such a thing. I could not have married him, it would have been a

sham, even if it was only for Leia's sake. Also, it would have given Bail an

excuse, and I had thus far denied him such toeholds. There was a push and

shove between us, over such things. It occurs to me now that I expected him

to betray me as well.

I also didn't expect to live very long, anyway.

I dressed in black, the next morning, calmly, without tears, or a smile, or

anything at all. I fastened the mourning veil in my hair, but pulled it away

from my face. Double symbolism, I would let you take that as you wanted to,

or not at all. Sabe` helped me do my makeup, the china-doll face, the

irregular shape of the lips. I was dressed conservatively, without ornament,

but I was walking in as Queen. Looking back on it, I realize how strange

that ritual was. How often does the corpse dress itself for the funeral?

Sabe` said nothing to me, but she did kiss me on either cheek. Her lips

came away white, but that may have just been the make-up. I whirled swiftly

on my heel, let my hands rest on the cool wood of Leia's crib. It was oddly

reminiscent, I remembered when Luke was taken. Leaning over the crib, I

brushed my fingers over Leia's small mane of hair, gazed into her brown

eyes. They were mirrors of my own, those eyes, and wide awake. My wedding

ring, still suspended on its chain, dangled over Leia. It caught the light,

glimmered, and Leia reached for it, batting at it with her small fingers. I

kissed her, told her I loved her, and left. After that, I don't know what

happened. For her anyway.

You know what happened- for me. For us.

That's a strange thing to say, now.

I wonder where my wedding ring is, because when I woke up here, it was

gone.


	3. The Common Price of Passion

Author's Notes: Yay! I finished the next part... [weak smile] I hit a block for a while, so I hope this doesn't disappoint. Please email me and let me know what you think. I'd really appreciated it. ^_^

Send all feedback, comments, or offerings (excluding firstborns) to: mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

Date Begun: July 15th, 2001

Date Finished: August 10th, 2001

---------------------------------------------------------

From Where Ever I Am To You 3/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

septembers0demon@crosswinds.net

---------------------------------------------------------

|Night|

Boots. Large ones, meant to rise a few inches above the ankle, hazel in color. The laces are thick, with little metal pieces on the ends to keep them from fraying, and the soles are clunky, with cleats. If I were to go outside in them, these boots, I would leave tracks. Deep tracks, possibly, easy to follow. I stare at the boots, which are on my feet because they are mine. They were given to me. Presented.

I'm not quite sure how this happened.

When the door opened, I was sleeping, or something like that. Sometimes I lay there, under my blanket, and I drift to a place I am unfamiliar with. The walls around me change slightly, but I still know where I am. If I stand up, I become dizzy, the world moves around me and I am divided; in two places at once. I have learned not to do this- it's terribly disorienting. The door opened, let in a shaft of light, and I opened my eyes, or focused them, I'm not sure which. My breath caught in my throat, because it wasn't time for my shift yet; I work third, and if the marching of the first doesn't wake me then the second always does. Too early, I thought with certainty. Our bodies can tell time well enough, if we let them, if we are forced to rely on them. I laid very still, having no other choice, and thought of being a child on Naboo. I would hide in my father's vineyards, pressed low to the ground as I pretended to be part of the scenery. I tried, without moving, to blend in with the bed. The door closed, there was an abrupt darkness, and then my glowlamp lit to half, as if of its own will. That's not true, though, I knew I wasn't alone. There came footsteps, armor against stone- a Stormtrooper. 

"Ma'am?" a young voice, painfully young and I blinked. I am not used to being addressed with such respect. Fear, yes, but not respect. They aren't the same thing. You need to remember that. 

I sat up, slowly- too quickly and I feared he might shoot. What could he want with me? How could I be of use to him? That's the way things are measured here, by their usefulness. Beauty saves no one. Whatever it was, it couldn't be taken laying down. I looked at him, but they all look the same, extensions of one another. He was a little shorter than most.

I said, "Yes." It was not a question, for I am not in a position to question things. He was holding something, concealed partly behind his back, and at the time I thought it was a gun. My lungs stopped, suddenly, in the middle of a breath. Would he tell me not to scream?

Them use 'em, Courwyn said, Even Stormtroopers need bribes, you know.

Courwyn, who I have not seen in days.

"Lady Vader?" he hadn't moved, nor had I, for quite sometime. For a moment, I didn't look up at him, because I was waiting for her to answer. Then I realized he was speaking to me. As best I could, I stared him in the eye, watching as he knelt on the floor, about a foot away from the bed. In the shadow-thick light of the glowlamp, he placed the gun on the floor. Only it wasn't a gun, it was a pair of boots. Men's boots, obviously, large, dusty and worn in. I wanted to cry then, because he'd reminded me.

Once or twice, I went with you to one the hangar bays, on Naboo or Coruscant, and we would work on some beat up speeder or pod racer. I was never very good with mechanics, but it was something we could do together. We'd laugh at each other, grease stains on our clothing, on our faces, then kiss each other to make up. I'd wear one of your old shirts then, and pants cut off from a flight-suit- I used to do that, as if I had the right. I'd wear boots too, then, an old pair of yours that were ridiculously too big for me. In our informality, we looked much the same, mirrors as we handed each other parts and tools, engrossed in our work. We could have been anyone then, you and I- not a Jedi Padawan and a Nubian Senator, but anyone. Starship navigators, smugglers, fighter pilots on off shift. Such freedom it was, to be able to change like that. More often then not, we ended up looking like we'd crawled out from the sewer, exhausted but happy. Somewhere, there is a holo of us like that, it used to sit on the desk in my office. It's probably gone now.

"Ma'am?" the Stormtrooper asked again, his head lowered respectfully. It was the tone that brought me back. I took a few minutes to assure myself of where I was, waiting until the dizziness passed. Leaving forward, I picked up the boots gratefully. The Stormtrooper paused a moment, as if considering some other course of action, before he stood.

"Why?" I asked softly, for I didn't want to frighten him away. That made the situation more surreal, the thought of frightening a white statue, but I had earned right to ask something now. 

"Your feet," he said, as if that explained it all. Simultaneously, we dropped our gazes to my feet, which were bound up in what little I could spare and looked a little dead. One strip of cotton had loosened, revealing a fresh row of red frostbite, standing out against my pale skin. It was nothing unusual. I looked at the soldier again, longer this time, for he had set himself apart from the others. He no longer held that quality of sameness. Distinguished, as they say. For a moment, beyond that featureless mask, he could have been you. That's wrong, of course.

"Thank you," I said, and I meant it, even as the guilt nipped at my numb feet. He couldn't know, of course. "What is your name?" Another question, I had not realized how out of practice I was at asking them. The solider stiffened, as if surprised, but I imagine he understood. A kindness had been done for me, now I owed him one. Dutifully, he rattled off a set of numbers, and I asked again.

"Keronji," he said, having retreated to the door. I felt fear then, not for myself, but for him. The boots were his, he couldn't have gotten them for me anywhere else. Darkness fell, or rose, as he turned off the glowlamp and stepped through the door. But really, he is safer out there, where nothing can be assumed. 

I sat in the darkness with the boots.

So, the question becomes, what to do with them? I know what they were intended for, but they can also be dismantled, their parts used for other purposes. If I undo the laces, I could tie them together, attach them to the headboard. They might be long enough. All I would have to do is lean my weight forward, go elsewhere. 

They probably won't hold, though. I've considered all the options.

I'm wearing them now, the boots. They're big enough that I can fit my cotton-clad, slippered feet inside and still have plenty of room. I would have taken off the strips, but they've dried to some of the welts, and I'd feel very naked without them. For all their age, the boots are quite warm; at least I think they are- I can't feel my feet very well. I will wear them here, when I am alone, because here is where I need them the most. Also, it would not be fair to wear them outside my cell, amongst other prisoners who only have slippers. I try to spare myself guilt, when I can, but in spite of myself, I am touched. Perhaps this kindness means even more, considering my position.

I am, after all, your wife.

|Night|

I need something to do. Something to touch, with my hands, feel for texture, something to claw towards. I sit on the bed, boot-clad feet on the floor, back straight, hands in my lap. Holding my breath, I count to three, expel, hold to the count four, to the count of fifteen. The room spins around me, slightly off axis, but it's hard to tell. On three sides, the walls are gray. Also, the wall on my right is gray, but there is a door laid into it. Punctuation. This door slides away to the left, and can only be opened from the outside. There isn't even a panel on the inside, just the frame of the threshold. I tilt my head; still, it is something to look at. The glowlamp sits by the door- I placed it there, to make things more interesting. I am sitting on the heavy blanket, which is more like a long bolt of flannel, and does not have a design. Beneath that, there is the mattress, and then the box-spring. Irregularities are contained inside that box-spring; this is what gives this room personality, if only in my own mind. These are my possessions, all that I own in the world, all that I am not supposed to have. Time to take inventory: I have a broken fork, the handle severed from the prongs, and eleven blunted nails. The drawer is open, or can be opened. There is nothing to work for. On the headboard, the heater sits quietly.

I think about the word for silence, in all the languages I know.

Nubian: rhlit.

Ithorian: tamdor.

Calamarian: fem.

Corellian: amelece.

Basic...

Just silence. Why do we ever say 'just'? An attempt to diminish things, I suppose. Words can't make this any smaller. 

I should do something.

Shall I tell you about yourself?

Here is what I believe:

I believe that you are dead, have been dead, quite a while. I think of your body, the lines of it, the whole of it, laying somewhere, cut down. Vader did this to you, with the crimson lightsaber that forced away your soul like the sun does the mist. Nebulous, hard to contain. Surely your corpse shows some evidence of the battle- wounds- but it pains me to imagine them, so I don't. Perhaps someone found you, buried you, but mostly likely you still lay where you fell, and Vader continues to live the life he's stolen from you.

You're different enough that I can imagine you two people, not one. 

But only for a little while.

I believe that what they tell me, what I saw with my own eyes, is true. I'm not going to say it, though.

Also, I believe that you are alive, well and whole and hiding somewhere. With the other Jedi, most likely, or a group of them. They started running almost immediately, they knew what was in store for them. The group found you somehow, or ran into you where ever it was you'd been stranded- that's why you weren't there for me. I understand. You're holed up in some some port-city, wet probably, miserable but alive. Your breath comes out in gasps, blessed irregularity. You've been running. It could be that you are stranded, you and your party, or that you have to move around a lot. Planet-hopping, like smugglers, like runaways, which is what you are. You are smuggled, you are precious, priceless, important enough for that. Sometimes, I imagine, your party finds a sympathetic household or ship- you get a hot meal and decent night's sleep. The Captain's wife, or the farmer's wife, gives you a set of her husband's old clothing. It's a bit big, but it will do. You smile at her lopsidedly, say 'thanks' in that way of yours that makes it seem like more than that. She looks like your mother, in my mind.

This branches out now, with its possibilities. It is a tree, I nurture it with my need, my contradictory beliefs. First, you could be stuck on some back water planet, or you have to hide for fear of being found. 'Found' is synonymous with 'dead', these days. You don't know where I am, but that's alright. I don't know where you are. 

I may never see you again. 

Or you could have found your way to the Rebellion, you could be on your way here even now. I could receive some word from you, you're high up enough to arrange that. Surely the Rebellion extends, even here. The Rebellion is not a government, it has no borders. The Rebellion is within. Where will I find it, this word from you? Possibly I will receive no word at all. It will be a surprise. You may just barge in, as is your way, with a group of soldiers. Maybe you won't even know I am here, at first. You'll know, eventually, because you always do. Someday, the door to my cell may open, and it will be you standing there.

"Hi," you will say, sheepishly. As if you are sorry you didn't find me sooner. That's okay. I don't mind. I'll get up from my bed, or from the floor, stand blinking in the harsh light of the hallway, something newly born. Or reborn. I won't really believe that it is you. 

That's true enough.

"Ani?" I have to whisper, or my voice will break.

"Yes," You'll say. I'll hold my arms out, I'm too exhausted to run to you. You understand. 

You'll say...

I have to stop here. I really don't know what you would say, supposing. I have to stop there, because the dream stops there, and I can't continue it in the light of day.

I know what is true.

Don't ever think otherwise.

|Rest Cycle|

I thought I heard Leia crying, when I woke up this morning. I wasn't really awake, you understand, my mind was in that state of half-sleep; when you think you're up, getting dressed, getting on with your life, when you're really still in bed. For the longest time I lay there, listening to her little half-cry, the one she would give when she just wanted attention. I kept thinking I needed to get up, go to her, but I couldn't move. That's a common feeling these days. It occurred to me that Bail or Sabe` would go in to settle her down- that was enough of a stretch to register as being off in my mind. I sat up, fully awake, and the first thing I noticed was that my bed was in the wrong place.

It wasn't, not really.

This isn't the first time that has happened. Sometimes, if I wake in the middle of the night, I think that if I just roll over you'll be there, sleeping beside me. You'll put your arm around me and I'll be able to stare up at the ornate carvings on the ceiling. The light of Naboo's twin moons turns the golden flowers to a strange, ethereal silver, it makes the carvings look reversed. I used look up at them, when I couldn't sleep, and trace through the tiny, intricate mazes with my eyes. There isn't enough room here, in my single bed, to roll over, and the ceiling is plain gray. Like everything else, like me.

Forgive me, I can't seem to talk to you tonight. It's hard to write, anymore, hard to put the words down in a certain order, hard to make the sounds come out right. I don't even know why I do this anymore, there isn't much to tell. I sleep when they tell me to, or else lay in bed and pretend. I eat when they tell me to, even if I have to force it down my throat and throw it up later. When they tell me to walk, I walk, with dozens of other shadows like me. We're ghosts, you know, outcasts. We don't belong in your world anymore. Do you even ever think about me? Even once, maybe in the dead of night, when you don't have anything to keep you busy? Or do you hear my voice, like I sometimes hear yours, at the strangest times? Today, I don't believe you think of me; today I think you're dead. I'm not sure what I'll believe tomorrow, but I'll be sure to let you know.

I know what's happening to me. Crisis of faith, they call it, when the bottom falls out of your world and your own face in the mirror belongs to a stranger. That's what this living is like, I feel as though I'm a different person every time I wake up. The truth is immaterial, because I'll probably never know what it is.

What happened to Luke, I wonder?

I don't know why I bother.

|Night|

Courwyn is gone. I'll revise that, Courwyn is not gone, she is elsewhere. Gone means dead, which she is not. As far as I know. 

I heard this from the girl who sat next to me in lunch yesterday. She heard it from Wyndie, who heard it from Anshii, who heard it from the girl who used to be Courwyn's bunkmate. Used to- that's strange, because around here the only thing that changes is the season. Predictability is a crutch, and it is also another punishment. Once, when I was younger, I read about a religious group that had been exiled from their tribe. They lived out in the swamps for years on end, confined to the acre or so allotted to them, and in living apart they composed another culture. When the tribe accepted them back, many of them couldn't handle the change. They went back to the swamps of their own choice. I don't *think* I'd want this.

But about Courwyn. I need to remember to tell things in order, even if they become mixed in my mind, with no clear connection between them. Everything is a separate moment, I can't see the larger scheme anymore. 

"Lady," someone's voice, close to my ear, a slight nudge of someone else's elbow. I looked up without raising my head and continued shoveling food in my mouth for a moment. I made a slight motion with my free hand, to show her that I'd heard. 'Lady', she said, because she had nothing else to address me with. Only the Stormtoopers give me your name, the one you use now, and the others don't know what to call me. No one knows my real name, I have buried it in hopes of someday uncovering it again, of picking up where I left off. That's impossible.

"Yes?" I said at last, sure that the Stormtrooper had passed our row. At the far end of the cafeteria, I saw a a a white statue separate two of our own kind that had been talking. The girl beside me stiffened- she'd seen it too.

"You were friends with Courwyn?" she asked, voice low. I turned my head towards her briefly, saw that her face was round and her eyes a faded green. My own face looked strange reflected in the dark of her pupils.

"'Were'?" I asked, picking up on the past-tense. My free hand moved down to touch the scar bellow my ribs, and I held my breath. Anything past-tense couldn't be good. Not around here. 

"She's not here anymore," the faded green eyes took on a manic light, "She escaped!" 

"Escaped?" I repeated numbly. I didn't understand what she was saying. Did she mean that Courwyn was dead, that she'd found something sharp enough, been left alone for the right amount of time? Escaped; it's in the same category with imaginary numbers, mythological beasts and freedom. Conjecture, theory, all of it. 

"Over the wall," hissed the voice, which sounded older than mine, "She made one of the droids malfunction. It started shorting and caught fire. They called a bunch of troopers in, and she slipped out before the door closed. It took them a while to notice, they were so busy putting out the fire. I heard a bunch of 'em talking- she went over the wall in the orchard. They think she'll freeze to death."

"Oh," I said, like I was the one frozen, and then "oh" like someone who had been burned. What else could I possibly say?

Over the wall. AWOL- that's what they said about you, in the first reports. They said you commandeered a small fighter, vanished. They couldn't trace you through hyperspace, of course, and when they found another B-Wing crashed on a nearby moon, they assumed you'd lost control, or programmed the coordinates wrong. Over the wall. That's where Courwyn is, in that huge, all-consuming black beyond our boundaries What is she doing, I wonder, while I lay here in my regimented bed, in my uniform gray, with my hands folded? What happened, after she climbed the barrier, cut herself undoubtedly on the barbed wire? She must have stumbled, broken and bleeding into the... I don't even know what it's like out there- it could be a desert of snow, or a prairie like Naboo, a swamp or a forest. Whatever it is, most likely Courwyn won't last long. That doesn't matter now- she's free. She's out there, she is theta; any and all numbers. Undefined. Just like you. 

In my mind, the walls are as high as heaven. There's no way out. I'm dreaming now, I'm walking the path of the wall, dressed as a handmaiden. There is sand beneath my feet, I am on Tatooine, and we are divided by the wall. I press myself against this wall, in this dream which is not a dream because I am still awake and typing. The wall is soft, it yields and holds me. I know you're on the other side. 

What's it like out there?

I'm crying, because I know there's no way out. I can't go forward, and I most certainly can't go back. All roads lead nowhere. What are you doing, right now? If you were to come here, if you were to walk through that door, cast your tall shadow over where I am curled at the edge of my bed... Supposing you came, not as you once were, but baring the mantle of what you are now; if you were to come and hold out your hand to me, I don't know what I'd do. 

I might put my hand in yours.

Oh Ani, I am in a bad way. 

|21:00 hours, 24th of Levitite|

I'm not sure how to tell this, but the first thing I did was ask for the date. I look at the glyphs, above these words on the screen, and I run my fingers over them. I did the calculations, in my head, to find my place in the Nubian calendar. It is harvest season at home, if it is still a home, and things are beginning to hide.

21:00 hours. If I was on Naboo, in the time before, I would be preparing to retire. Turning down the bed, brushing out my hair, or perhaps in the sitting room with Sabe`, going over some last minute notes on the next days schedule. On Coruscant, I would be finishing late supper, still dressed in my senator's robes, looking worriedly at the clock. I would need to rush the meal, of course, even if you were sharing it with me, because the senate would return from recess in an hour. I always came home though, even if I spent more time getting there, out of habit I don't feel any longing when I think about this, oddly enough, it's like it happened to someone else. The longing will come, I'm sure, when I am more accustomed to my surroundings.

I am sitting on a bed- not my bed because it is laid into the wall, the frame cool to the touch. There is no drawer. Also, the mattress is hard to move, simply set into the frame's basin. I don't have much to hide anyway, not anymore. There are glowlamps- three of them - set into the walls, turned down low, as if I am an invalid. And I am, even here, I am invalidated. On the cool metal floor, which hums beneath me every other hour, there lays a soft rug. No tables though, nothing that is sharp, or could be broken and made sharp. I checked. The walls, save the glow lamps, are broken only by the doors. There are two of them, on either side of me, and both of them are locked. 

I need to find a place to hide this, the TypePad, which once seemed so thin and small. Now it feels enormous, heavy and thick. Where will I hide it, in here? I don't know this room well, I have not touched its walls with my fingers, studied it to the intimate detail. This must be done quickly, all things hidden must be done quickly. The medic droid will come soon, to look at a wound that doesn't exist. I will need to make it exist, after I hide this. Perhaps there is room to slide it in between the mattress and the wall. It's worth a try.

|26:00 hours, 24th of Levitite| 

Before I go any further, I need to tell how I got here, even if I'm not so sure myself. The whole thing was as being caught in a heavy rainstorm, where the water falls so swiftly that it blurs every outline, and the world is a different place entirely. I should tell how I got here, because I don't know *why* I am here. I will settle for the mechanics of the situation.

I heard the soldiers' footsteps, long before they came to my door. The echoes were horrible, mimicking a whole platoon when perhaps there were only four of them. I forgot to count, I was so surprised. Their footsteps neared my door, my room, and I began to panic. Why would they come for me, in the middle of the night? I was tempted to continue sitting there, TypePad in my lap, and wait for them to open the door. To what end, though? The stillness which had overtaken me the last few months had served me no better than my frantic struggling. Both were exhausting, both seemed pointless. It was so much effort, to move. I felt liquid, like something that had congealed around a central object, whatever that is. Once I began to move, once motion learned my body again, I was starved for it. I took the sheet from my bed, which was no more than a square, and tore another strip from it. Lifting my robes, I tied the strip around my abdomen, tightly. In the dim light of the glowlamp, I could see the scar bellow my ribs. The dark brown had faded somewhat, though the rough flesh had changed little. I ran my free hand over it for a moment, feeling the texture. There are days it seems like a drawing of sorts, a map embedded in my skin. Mostly, it just seems alien, something that has grown itself over me. Which is true. 

Another sound from the hallway prompted me to move again. This is how distracted I am these days, by small things, by trivia. The larger things might crush me beneath their weight and not know it. I finished tying the strip of cloth around my waist and slipped the TypePad between it and my body. My hands released my robes, a gray curtain falling over me, concealing. I was afraid the cloth wouldn't hold, but I sat there quietly, hands folded. You'd think after all this time I'd be used to waiting.

Actually, I don't know what you'd think, anymore.

The beating of my heart, my caged-bird heart, eclipsed the sound of the door opening. The light spilled onto my floor, like a flood, but very artificial. It was too bright to be real. There were shadows in the doorway, insubstantial, and my eyes flickered over them quickly. None of them were you. I could tell just by the outlines, and a feeling like cool wine slid down my throat. It might have been relief. I sat there, blinking in the light like something so recently dug up; staring at the Stormtroopers who only stared back at me. 

"Lady Vader," one of them said. I almost looked away, towards that corner of the room that belonged to her, but I didn't. They would expect me to answer for her. 

I drew a breath past the pumping of my heart and said; "Yes?" 

"You need to come with us, Lady Vader," he used the name again, waving it about as if it was some type of weapon. And it is, because it hurts. 

"Alright," I said, as if I had a choice. This surprised me, but it didn't seem to phase him. My hands shook slightly, I felt I should not have answered at all. I should have looked him politely, mouth closed loosely, eyes filled with blank interest. If he repeated the name, I should have held myself still and pretended not to understand. Perhaps, if I waited long enough, he might have called me Madame Naberrie, Amidala of the Naboo, or even Lady Skywalker. At that last thought, cold overwhelmed me. That name which I had so prided myself on, no matter how little I used it, must have been destroyed. You cut away your old life, your old name, quickly and without mercy. Possibly none of my names exist, not a one of them lingers. Lady Vader may now be the only title accorded to me.

I don't want to think about that, it's too defining.

"This way," one of the Stormtroopers, the same one, said. He moved his hand inanely, gesturing towards the door, which is the only way out. At least the only one he'd use, at least the only one that works both ways. There are other ways to leave, but they are all permanent. I rose from the bed with grace that startled me and walked towards the door with my head held high. A few of the Stormtoopers slipped into step behind me, with the other one leading the way. Under the bright lights, our shadows were small, squat, decrepit things. They looked more like dark puddles of rain water, or stands for the doll on a music box. Round and round with no place to go. I had a music box once, with a little Nubian angel kneeling at the base. 

'And now it's gone, doesn't matter what for...' it played. 

I don't remember the rest of the words. 

How strange we must have looked, this line of soldiers and a single prisoner, parading down the hall. Proceeding, really, as there was no one to see us. The TypePad moved in its pouch as I walked, and I wondered if the cloth would hold. From the corner of my eye, I glanced at each solider. Their helmets are a lot like binders, for lesser beasts of burden, they have no choice but to look ahead. Really, it's a lot like that. Slowly, I moved my arms to cross over my belly, holding the TypePad in place. I couldn't afford to let it drop. We reached the end of the corridor and turned down another less familiar one. I had never been down this one, it had been like a mirage; easily seen as myself and others like we were marched past it, but utterly unreal. At the far end there was a door, metallic and painted black, threatening in it's own vague way. That's where they are taking me, I thought wonderingly. No fear came to me, no sense of sadness. In a way, I was excited- it was, after all, a change in routine.

"I'm sorry, Ma'am," said the lead Stormtrooper when we reached the door. I looked at him through one of my own masks. They were slowly coming back to me, the ones I had worn in the time before, and insanely easy to slip back on. I had not out grown them. The expression on my face was one of polite inquisitiveness, I thought Lady Vader might know that one too. For a moment I thought he might be apologizing to me because I was going to die. 

Well, hurry up about it, then.

I heard one of the soldiers beside me move, and turned to face him instead. He held in his hands a pair of binders, gleaming silver. 

"I'm sorry," the leader repeated, tacking your name on the end of the sentence, "We need you to wear these." Inside, I felt the wild urge to laugh, because I understood now what was going on. He needed to ask for my permission, before any of them could touch me. Myself- the prisoner, the imprisoned! The situation only seemed surreal, but I nodded my head regally, carefully holding out my hands. I crossed them at the wrists and waited patiently, thinking with despair how stupid I'd been. Writing all these things down- Leia certainly was the most at risk. From that seed of fear I saw a whole gruesome chain of events extend. Would Bail get any wind of your coming, or would you be meticulous and strike without warning? And if he should escape, Bail, carrying Leia, how far could he get? I thought of Leia, so small and dwarfed by your shadow, by the whole of your presence. Possibly, she would scream. I could see her little mouth, open and wailing as she did when Luke was taken. Shaking overwhelmed me again, briefly, and my jarred wrists connected very gently with the Stormtrooper's gloved fingers. He drew away in what seemed like shock, allowing the binders to fall to the floor. 

"I'm sorry," I said automatically. No one said anything, but they were all looking at me. I know, because they had to move their heads to do it. 

It only took one try to get the binders on again.

Bound and silent, I turned to face the black door. The Leader-- and he was so, simply by his movements-- stepped forward and keyed in the password. The door slid open, and let the winter inside. I felt the cold touching me, wind instead of still, recycled air. Outside, I could see forever until the wall, the flat expanse of a landing pad. There was a small, white shuttle sitting serenely to the side, as if it wanted to become one with the snow. The markings were unfamiliar, but I imagined it was Imperial. It reminded me of the Stormtroopers, it was like them somehow, in it's functionality and sameness. They led me out into the snow, and I felt only the heavy boots incasing my feet. No one had noticed them, and I thought with some sadness about Keronji. And Courwyn who escaped, and Anshii who's bunkmate was dead, and the girl from the freshers with the scar on her leg. Where ever I was going, I would have no allies. 

The shuttle's ramp was already down, its engine warming. It was waiting for us, then, me and my kalescopic white shadows. As we climbed into the ship, I found I could see just slightly over the wall. I strained to see what lay on the other side, somehow expecting to see Courwyn's still, frostbitten body sprawled on the edge of freedom. There was nothing there, but that doesn't mean anything. Inside the shuttle was warm, and I found I missed the cold. Warmth threatens to melt me, lull me into sleep or a false sense of security. I am more aware in the cruel chill; solid and sure of myself, if nothing else. 

"You can sit here, Lady Vader," said one of the soldiers. He gestured to a row of seats that ran the length of the shuttle. I paused again, waiting for her to answer, before I realized the duty would fall to me. I need to get out of that habit. I nodded slowly, pressing my bound hands against my abdomen as I sat. The TypePad wouldn't fall yet, I knew, but I didn't want to take any chances. Two Stormtroopers sat down beside me, one on either side, the others sitting across from us. I stared at them, wondering at the black lines on their helmets. Was there symbolism to this? I wondered. I hadn't really noticed the detail before. 

"Ma'am," said the white one sitting to my left. I wondered if they were annoyed at having to prompt me so often. What did they think of this strange woman no one must touch, this woman who took (or was given, though that seems a mundane term) the name of a towering black menace? Possibly they thought nothing at all. Maybe they were just praying, the same thing as I; just let me get through this alive. I looked up at the Stormtrooper, then down at his hand. It was hovering over my own bound ones, which were sitting in my lap. My eyes focused on him again and I waited, daring him to reach down, pluck my hands from my lap. Any power is addicting, even when what little you have is make-believe. Finally, I raised my hands allowing him to attach the binders to the arm of my chair. 

Where did they think I was going to go?

I felt a little sick when the shuttle began to lift off. At the time, I did not know how long it had been since I had last ridden in one. My mind raced across memories, trying to recall the most recent experience. I realized that I would not remember the last one, because I do not know how I came from Coruscant to... the planet that held the prison. It is unsettling to have such a gab, but it does not reek of your doing. The last time I remember, then, was with Obi-Wan. From Naboo to Coruscant, nine months pregnant. I did not want to leave, of course, I was afraid that I would go into labor during the trip. And the whole reason I had gone back to Naboo was so that I could have my children there, someplace beautiful, instead of submissive Coruscant. The city-planet does have it's own beauty, but it is a worldly thing. Obi-Wan convinced me though, saying he had news of you, and that it was no longer safe on Naboo. He was only partially right, because I was no safer on Coruscant. You know that, of course. The trip, now that I think back on it, is laced with suspicion. I suspected Obi-Wan of lying, or telling one of his half-truths, and he suspected...

Well, what happened to you. 

The chair beneath me rocked somewhat as we broke the atmosphere, and I turned my head just a little so that I might see the pilots. Their backs were too me, they faced forward and knew where they were going. Between them, I could see a patch of stars and the very edges of a larger Imperial ship. 

Star Destroyer-- I know the terminology.

"This is shuttle Phaderus requesting permission to dock," said the pilot. He was not a Stormtrooper but a higher officer, dressed in pressed olive. I listened carefully, the thought occurred to me that they might be taking me to you. I felt... I don't want to discuss this. 

"Shuttle Phaderus," came the voice on the other end of the line, "this is Star Destroyer 'Unquestioned Command', please give us your landing code." A string of numbers was given by the pilot, and answered with permission to land. The Star Destroyer loomed over us, suddenly, the only thing visible through the viewport. I leaned forward, curious, then glanced at the Stormtroopers around me. None of them moved to stop me, and I continued to look ahead. 'The Unquestioned Command', the name for this Star Destroyer. It couldn't be you, I decided anxiously, you always gave your ships female names. Or at least, you used to. That old, chill hand settled at the base of my spine-- that wasn't very reassuring. 

So, the shuttle landed, my binders were unhooked, and I was lead down the gang plank and across the large docking bay. I placed my hands back over my belly, somewhat exhausted. I hadn't done this much walking in a long time. There were more shadows waiting at the other end of the bay, but none of them were tall enough to be you.

"Lady Vader," that name again, this time spoken by a stiff bean pole of a man in a olive uniform. His chest was decorated with little colored squares that meant nothing to me. "I trust your trip was well," very courteous, he was on his best behavior. I smiled only slightly, because I could see in his colorless eyes what he was thinking: *this* is Lady Vader? Small, dressed in gray, brown eyes dulled and brown hair short, her face barely responsive. No, that's not Lady Vader at all, and I am glad. 

"Yes," I said. The possibility of you still hovered near by, and my face must have been as pale as my ritual paint. I continued to look up at him with a small, blank smile I didn't feel, waiting. He didn't bother to hide the fact he was looking me over, and his eyes finally caught on the way I was holding my middle.

"Have you been harmed?" he asked, and I heard the Stormtroopers shift behind me. I understood, they were responsible for me.

"Yes," I lied, horrified at my own inability to hide the TypePad, "Earlier, back at the prison. My wound has never healed completely." Which is true. 

"Oh," he looked a bit frightened actually, but he covered it well. "We'll send a medic droid to you soon. You," he gestured to one of the Stormtroopers. Even he probably didn't know which one it was, "take Lady Vader to her room." I was led, still bound, down the endless white hallways, by a white man who did not touch me. 

'We'll send a medic droid *to* you.'

'*Take* her to her room.' 

Oh, you strange man in your olive uniform, I don't need to be told I am still a prisoner. 

So, I was presented with the room. The room with three glowlamps and two locked doors, though only one of them was locked at the time. The Stormtrooper stood back, gesturing for me as the door slide open. He did this as if I could refuse, or say that the room displeased me. I could not, of course, and he knew this, but he was just following orders. What had his superior said? Perhaps he said not to touch me, or to be careful or else treat me with care. As if I am made of glass, and might break. It hasn't happened yet. I stepped inside, carefully, trying to disguise my interest. I wanted to gaze around the room, drink in the details of this new environment. Instead, I forced my gaze straight ahead, paused in the center of the room and turned back to the guard. Standing there, hands folded and face expressionless, I was as much a statue as he. 

"We've called for the medic droid," he said, mostly because it was something to say.

"Oh," I nodded, though fear shot through me. I would need time to hide the TypePad. Had I brought it all that way for nothing?

"It will take a while," the Stormtrooper went on, seemingly unnerved by my small response. "Will you be able to wait?" he asked, which meant 'Please don't die on my watch.'

"Yes," I said, relieved, "Thank you." I didn't meant for that to come out, but it did. The guard nodded, the barest movement of his helmet, and turned towards the door. "Wait!" the sound of my own voice so loud, surprised me, "Can you... can you tell me what day it is?" The Stormtrooper paused, and I thought perhaps he was looking at me strangely. That might have just been my imagination. 

"Gozefinee," the word was unfamiliar. The name for a day on whatever planet this soldier came from, I assumed.

I shook my head, frustrated, "No, the date, in standard... Please?" I added as an afterthought. I was starved for it, I thought I might pounce on this man and tear the information from his lips. I heard him sigh, perhaps in resignation. He named a date far removed for even my most drastic guess and I felt the world tilt. The numbers registered just barely in my brain; had I really been in that forsaken prison for so long?

"Thank you," I said again, this time meaning it. I turned away, to show him I wanted nothing else and a few moments later the door slipped closed. 

I continued to stand, like a stilled hologram, in the center of the room. A sense of possession crept over me-- I needed to write down the date,so that I wouldn't forget. My fingers stole into my robe, plucking out the TypePad before I could even think about it. I think I would have continued to run my hands over the keys, my fingers caressing them like an instrument, had I not felt such a need to hide it away. The medic droid would come, and there was nothing wrong with me. I amend that; there is nothing wrong with me that can be seen. I would have to produce a wound, make it with my own hands. I have more practice at that then you'd think.

On the floor then, feeling the soft rug beneath me body. I pulled up the robes again, having hidden the cloth and the TypePad, and I gazed on my scar with a clinical eye. I studied my hands too, thankful that my clipped nails had grown somewhat. My hand fashioned itself into the type of claw I sometimes saw in my nightmares, I drew my barred nails across the scar. Pain flowered quickly, almost as soon as I touched it. I'd forgotten how sensitive it was, and I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming. Again, I drew my hand across again, again, and fourth time. Blood spiked on my tongue as I released my lip. The scar was swelling, a bright, angry red. Enraged, irritated, words they use for humans too. Drawing up my knees, I clasped my hands behind my head and pulled myself up. Part of me was afraid it wouldn't work, it'd been so long since I'd made myself bleed this way. It was a relief to see the small red stain on my robes, moving outward quickly. Satisfied with the result, I climbed to my feet and sat on the bed to wait. 

I'm getting more practice at this. Can you tell?

So. The medic droid came, tall and gangly with it's multiple arms, it's three eyes for scanning and assessing damage. It bent over me, inspecting my abdomen, and then the twin scar on my back. He reminded me of Threepio in a way, the droid, though there was little physical resemblance. It's memory had obviously been wiped more than once, and it had no real personality, much less the eccentric type Threepio possessed. Perhaps it was the way it shook its head, almost in disapproval, that reminded me. I felt sorry for it- it seemed more human than the harvest droids. 

Here I am. Bandaged, with the blood dried on my fingers. There's time to spare now, nothing pressing to draw my attention. So much has happened, so much excitement. Perhaps too much. How long has it been since I was sitting in my room, spiraling comfortably downward? It was a lot like falling asleep, that gradual loss of awareness. Numbing, and I almost welcomed it. 

Well, I'm wide awake now.

I know you're not here, though I'm not sure how I have convinced myself of this. It's true, I believe that it is. I would know, if you were here somewhere, in this triangle riddled with mazes. Surely, if you were here, I would sense it. The hair on the back of my neck would rise, I would feel a slight chill, that response to being watched. The only chill now is the sensation of being lost, misplaced. I am not where I am supposed to be. It's been that way for a while, though. I'm used to it. So, here I am; I was taken from my prison to the landing pad, from the shuttle to the Star Destroyer called 'Unquestioned Command'. Why?

I almost miss the nails, rusted and blunt as they were. Almost, because I want to stay alive long enough to know. Why-- it's a vague question. You could start anywhere and still not get to an explanation. Possibilities stretch out before me, tempting me to consider them, jump to a conclusion. I have nothing to go on, though, and it would merely be an assumption. It could be the furthest thing from the truth. I lay back on the bed, which is set into the wall and almost like a coffin. My name is Padme` Naberrie Skywalker; they call me Lady Vader, but there is not enough room for she and I in this bed, in this coffin. I feel buried. Why have they unearthed me? There was no warning, they could have let me rot there, I am already dead.

At least to those who knew me. 

Something stirs within me, not my caged-bird heart, but something else. It's familiar, but I haven't felt it in years. It might be hope. Or dread. They're the same thing, you know.

For the first time, it has occurred to me that you might not know where I am.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

holds out hands ala Oliver Twist Please, may I have some feedback?

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

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mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com


	4. The One Who Holds The Keys

Date Begun: October 20th, 2002

Date Finished: December 12th, 2002

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From Where Ever I Am To You 4/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

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|19:00 hours, 25th of Levitite|

This is today. Today is the twenty-fifth of Levitite; different from yesterday, which was the twenty-fourth. I run these numbers in my mind, over and over. I plot ahead, like tiny, tight dots on a navigation map. Two weeks from now will be the sixth of Machidasai, and I keep going; three weeks from now, a month, three months. I understand now the purpose of measurement, of calendars. You can roll your day up, the whole of it, place it inside those tiny white squares-- and it will fit. When the night falls, you can look at the grid and know that the light will come again, if only to fill another white square. I hold on to time, the minutes and hours that pile up, add up, until you have to find someplace to put them. 

I am firmly in the here and now.

It's very gray, you know.

I know what's beyond the second door-- I went there today. Or was led there, by a Stormtrooper; just another silent white statue on the edge of my vision. The world is full of them. I watched, envious, as his placed his gloved fingers on the keypad. They moved with certainty, first pressing nine, then five and then...

"Ma'am, please look away," he had to turn his head fully to manage eye contact with me, a blank gaze. I could imagine his expression under the mask, though-- or expressions. It could have been sheepish, if he was young enough. Perhaps poliet, though, if he was older; as though he was sparing me from some indecent display. That's what it was, you know, for someone like me to watch that assured movement, that punching in of the code. The Stormtrooper knew the combination, knows it and other combinations, and therefore has some control. I envied him that control until I shook with it, though in the time before I knew tens and thousands of codes. The code to our aparment on Coruscant, the code my computer, and the lock box, and even the code to what was once your dorm in the Jedi Temple. I used to sneek in to surprise you, then fall asleep waiting from you to come in. 

I didn't want to think about that, so I turned my back.

"You can turn around now, Ma'am," he paused before that last bit, the poliet title, until it was like something tacked on the end of the sentence. Slightly askew, almost forgotten. I felt his eyes on me, I think, as I looked inside; the new room was white, not gray. A bathroom, even if there wasn't a bathtub-- just a fresher with glass doors and little basin to guide the water into the drain. Nothing you could drown in. 

"Go on," said the Stormtrooper, expectantly. No 'Ma'am' this time; he seemed to be loosing patience with me. I realized I hadn't moved and forced myself to take a step, just one, over the little line in the tiles that marked the threshold. The guard shut the door behind me, loudly and with finality; I whirled around because I had been sure he would follow me in. My eyes ran over the room, starved; drinking in the mirror which you could shatter, the nozzel of the fresher which you could tie something to, and the stink which could be stopped up and filled. Such danger! It seemed almost perverse, to be presented with so many different opportunities all at once. Could this be carelessness? I wondered. In the prison, they were not afraid of physical escape. It was exits you could open up inside yourself that they tried to guard against. Sheers and sharp screw drivers, knives and even the edge of broken lunch tray; they were deadly weapons in our hands. We always turned them inward though; defensive, not offensive. We wanted it, I wanted it, desperately-- like the taste of the word 'fatal' on the tongue. 

I'm not sure how long I stood there, looking at the room as a whole. I wasn't seeing the room, however, I was seeing my exit, endless escape, safe passage into the unknown. Reinvention, actually, because I have never been able to shake the beliefs of my childhood. Returning to this world after death, after cleansing by the Force, changing bodies like one changes clothes. I tried to think about that-- being someone else. Perhaps that's what happened to you, you were always getting things backwards anyway. It could be that you died, and the switch worked the wrong way, so that it was a new you in the old body? I can't quite believe that, but I catologe it anyway, my endless list of excuses and explantions for you.

"Ma'am, you need to hurry up." The Stormtrooper again, moving his impatience through poliet requirement, like tea through a strainer. 

"Alright," I said, making my long gray robes rustle in exaggeration. There was no carelessness, I understood that then. Any opening or cutting off of myself wouldn't be quick enough; the telltale silence would bring the Stormtrooper in. I wouldn't get away with it. I wouldn't get away.

I moved my fingers then, to the square, fuctional clasp at my throat. It felt strange, almost surreal, to be undoing it in privacy. I thought about the prison, again, about the rows of women undressing, passing before the guards in type of mechanical strip show. They used to root through our clothing, the pile of it outside the fresher door, to make sure we weren't hiding anything. There were always stacks and stacks of fresh, clean robes at the other end of the fresher. Who knows what they did with the old ones. I shrugged out of my robe, feeling the rough material peel away, like a reptile sheding its skin. I sat on the floor to remove my boot's (Keronji's boots), the slippers and the strips of cloth; biting my lip as I pealed the fabric away. Without them, my feet looked bare, forlon and abandoned-- with long rows of welts, patches of frostbite. A war-torn country-side. They looked like the word 'exposed'. 

I braced myself, turned to the mirror.

The reflection showed my nude form, from the waist up, and I felt suprise looking at it. I am taller than I remembered, and my hair has gown out. I'm surprised I wasn't made to cut it, it has grown past my shoulders; ratty brown, very wavy without more length to weight it down. My face too, seemed different than I expected. I had imagined the whole of myself drying up, like a cocoon of some sort, or else being erroded. Lady Vader's black marble face, borne down upon by the wind. But there was my face, the face from the time before, and it didn't look old or rotted. Just sad. I tried to smile, as if to reasure myself or the twin woman in the mirror, but it was hard to remember how. 

In the fresher, then, with the glass doors closed: I considered turning the water on cold, ice to encase and freeze me-- I thought it might wake me up. Instead, I turned it the other way, as hot as it could go. It burned against my back, loosening muscles, like knives you heat and then use to cut through butter, or sweets or the human heart. I worked my hands through my hair, pulling at tangles; I moved my body under the stream of water, letting it run over me, like lava carving new paths. The dim, fractured light from the glowlamp by the mirror came through the shower door, broke to pieces by the drain. I thought about the bathroom in my apartment on Coruscant, about the claw-footed basin I'd bought for it. I used to light candles on the sides, ones that had flowers or designs set into the wax-- they all smelled different, cinnamon and vanilla, Correllian butter wands, purple trumpet flowers from Alderra. With the door closed, the smell would rush back on me, waves of it, one with the warm water, and sometimes your hands on my shoulders. That's hard to remember. It was there though, I could remember it in the fresher. The sound of bodies, movement in water, quiet laughter. That made think of another time, sitting on the edge of the basin, wearing one of your old shirts and looking at the crystal, which was thin and had been made smooth by fire. My mother had sent it, all the way from Naboo, because she said the old ways were the surest ways, escpecially when it came to telling about pregnancies. 

"What's it say?" your voice, through the door. I could imagine you, leaning on the other side, waiting. Your voice told it all.

"Nothing yet," I said. The crystal was still clear, I could see the distortion of my hand through it. It would change color either way, red for yes and yellow for no. "I think this is it, though," I said, "I'm almost certain of it."

"I hope so," you said, and you meant it. Do you remember that?

"Oh," I said, a few minutes later, crying, happy tears, though I guess you couldn't tell through the closed door. 

"I'm sorry, Ami," you said. 

"You shouldn't be," I called, opening the door, holding out the red crystal. You laughed (do you remember?), you were so happy, you wanted children, you still do. You didn't know, though. You still don't, I only said there was one-- a boy-- because that was safest. There is more than one child, though. Children, plural, holding more hope.

I wish you didn't want them, though. For their sakes, and not mine. 

In the fresher (part of me wants to say 'back' in the fresher), I'd started to cry without thinking about it. I didn't notice, not really, until I started gasping; the tears were as hot as the water on my face. Weakness stumbled into my bones, probably from the water temperature, the steam I was breathing in. I felt dizzy, and gropped towards the little bench on the opposite end. I curled up there, folding in on myself, so I could finish with the violence of the emotion. It's like that, you know, you go without feeling anything for so long that when something comes, a little sadness or happiness or fear, it's just too much. The shower was loud-- at least, I thought so at the time-- it would drown out my sobs even if it wouldn't drown me. The crying wasn't so loud anymore, it had changed to weeping, which (in case you have forgotten, or didn't know in the first place) is silent. 

"Five more minutes," the Stormtrooper shouted, in a bizzare parody of my mother. When I was small, she used to do that; poking her head in, or just knocking on the door as I got older. Her voice would be indulgent but firm; 'Hurry up honey' or 'now dear, not another one of your day-long showers'. I wondered how the Stormtrooper felt, about having to say that, as if I was a child and he my babysitter/nanny/caretaker. I leaned my head against the frosted glass door, seeing fractured shapes and strange patterns-- nothing I could recognize.

"I'm coming!" I shouted, over the water, much like I did when I was younger, and for the same reason. I wanted to, still want to, stay in that tiny cubical, naked and warm where the world can't get at me. 

I turned the water down to cold, after that. It was a mistake to make it warm, that's probably what reminded me of you and candles and children. I faced into the cold stream, which felt so much like rain that I could trick myself if I closed my eyes. 

I didn't stay in long after that. When I got out, I found a towel easily enough, under the sink, and dried my hair as best I could, braided it in two rows as I did in my girlhood. The heavy gray robe soaked up what was on my body, I drew it back over myself in a type of regression. Like the... what are they... the winged creatures, with hard bodies they could draw their heads into? It was like that, quickly, a type of animal protection. They used to nest outside our window, if you'll remember.

I knocked on the door, three times, waiting for the Stormtrooper to let me out. If he could have looked annoyed, through the bleak white helmet, I think he would have. 

"Lady Vader," an unfamiliar voice, not the stilted one from the white statue. I turned around, slowly, so as not to seem startled or off guard. It was the beanpole man from the hangar, turned towards me only partly, hands clasped behind his back. He'd planned this, I thought, from where he'd be standing to catching me fresh from the shower. He smiled at me kindly, as if I needed his forgiveness-- which I don't.

At least not his. 

"Sir," I said, my voice soft only out of half-remembered experience. I glanced at his row of pointless colored squares. I didn't know what to call him.

"Admiral Tarkin," he smiled again, faintly amused. "Please, Lady Vader, take a seat." I did sit, partly out of nessescity, partly because I was overwhelmed. A shower-- alone! unguarded!-- seemed enough of an event for one day. I kept my back straight, though, my eyes on him as I perched on the edge of the bed. I knew why he wanted me to sit: so he could look down at me. 

"I *am* sorry for barging in like this," he began to pace, quick, economic strides. I craned my head, bird-like; his speech was hard to decode. Perhaps wanted to me to feel as if I should play hostess. Then again, it could have been an ingrained apology, something he learned from his mother. Or father-- probably that. He waited for me to answer, something forgiving, I suppose. 'Oh, not, not at all, Admiral Tarkin', or 'It's my pleasure, Admiral'. As if we were politicans, or distant relatives. "Your husband," he wet his lips, pausing.

Yes? Yes? I thought, trembling inwardly, like marrow inside bone. I thought he might be trying to break the news to me gently, in his own way, that you were waiting at our destination. Possibly, I considered, you were already on board and he was preparing me.

"Your husband has quite a reputation, Lady Vader." Oh. I felt a little disappointed-- it was almost anticlimactic. Just poliet conversation.

I said, "Oh?"

"Yes, he has," the Admiral looked at me, as if I should know. As if I was responsible. I think that he likes doing that; those little, silent moments of blame. 

"I wouldn't know," I managed, looking at my nails, which are no longer painted or of any interest. At least it was something to do, and old, habitual motion. 

Still, I could feel him looking at me with his colorless eyes, and I remembered his expression in the docking bay. Was that just yesterday? It was, but it's hard to believe. I am not used to my days having texture. '*This* is Lady Vader?' I could imagine him thinking-- saying, now that I have heard his voice. He wanted to know just what it was you'd seen in me. Some sterling quality, something of value that set me apart. That's how he, this been pole thing, must measure thing; by value, by what they can gain for him. He doesn't know, that I have been hollowed out. 

If I were to tell him, or the Stormtrooper by the doorway, or anyone at all, about that day in the junkshop... Well, no one would believe me. Not now, anyway. I hold these things to myself, though, tighly in spite of the fact they hurt. 

Don't angels usher in death? I really don't know that much about them.

You are dead, you just don't know it yet.

"Lady Vader," he prompted me. I looked up, more quickly than I would have liked. I had gone away again, inward, traveling on the roads inside myself. I need to stop doing that, I need to stay here. 

"Yes," I forced the words from my lips, "Admiral Tarkin?" He smiled, he liked it that I recognized his authority. I wonder how he really feels, about having to look out for me, about having to keep me in his care until we reach where ever we are going? I imagine he doesn't like it much, being delegated to nanny wouldn't sit right with a man like him. 

Lady Vader's babysitter, I rhymed in my head.

The irreverence is what I liked.

"Is there something you would like?" this from him, and not me. My face must have showed confusion, for he came to stand before me and repeated the question. He was offering me something then, because he could. It amused him, to hold out such things. Benevolence, he must call it in his mind. The desire to spit in his face was so fierce it surprised me. It's been a long time, since I've felt any hatred like that. I wanted to turn away, ignore him, because I knew that was the closest I could come to being rude and get away with it. Even my position would not save me from Admiral Tarkin's bruised pride. 

"I would like to watch a news-cast," I hadn't even thought the words, but they were out. There was that hunger for knowledge in me, for definition of the world at large, that I had yet to recognize. I wanted it, too, though I tried not to let it show on my face. To have some word of you, to hold, even if it cut into my like thorns. I am disgusted with myself for feeling this way, but it is there. Some part of me must still think that you are biding your time, that you will overthrow the Emperor and everything will be alright again. It can't be alright again, because if you turned there was obviously something wrong to being with.

"A... news-cast, Lady Vader?" the Admiral made it sound as if I had asked him for the moon, or water in the desert. I smiled inwardly at the expression on his face. It must be very rare that he is surprised. He collected himself quickly, though, began to pace the floor, as if he'd been expecting my request all along. "Yes, I suppose that could be arranged," he turned towards me, "but it will be two days until we are in a system where we can receive a reliable transmission."

"Of course," I inclined my head, in that way I remembered doing long ago. Regally, they call it. 

"Is there something else you would like, Lady Vader?" Emphasis on the else. I understood, then. He wanted me to be frivolous! To ask for a rare fruit, or a bracelet, a new dress. Those things are of very little value to me now; he must know that, or he would not have offered them to me. I cast my mind about, searching though my catalogue of muted desires, for some trifle that might serve me in the future.

"Gloves," I said, thinking of the cold touch to my fingers, the ice that crept in and refused to leave. Even gloves might not be useful, though-- for all I know, they might take me to a desert world. Tarkin smiled at me, he liked the fact I wanted gloves, and only he could give them to me. "But only if it isn't too much trouble," I added. 

"No trouble at all, Lady Vader," he kept saying that name, thrusting it towards me, as if I had forgotten it. "I will see to it that the gloves are brought to you." He turned, resolutely, apparently finished with me. I curled my fingers inward, fearing he had forgotten about the newscast. Really, I didn't want the gloves. "Someone will take you to see the newscast, in two days time," Tarkin tossed it over his shoulder, but it was more like an arrow. I felt ill, to have been manipulated by him so. "Good evening, Lady Vader."

"Good evening, Admiral," I returned, vaguely.

It was evening, then. Already.

Two days. Two sets of twenty four hours, by the standard measurement. I lay here, moving my hands quietly over the keys, thinking about the time two days from now. It seems unusual, bizarre almost, to have something to look forward to. Already it is closer than it was a minute ago, time carries me towards it. Time has always carried me, I am passive in its embrace, but it is only now that I notice. Before, I had no measurement, no scenery, so I could not tell that I was being moved. Time will take me to where ever this ship is taking me, though that seems so distant that I almost can't conceive of it. I will stick to mortal time, then, house-fly hours, brief with quick deaths. Two days. 

What will the holo-projector tell me, in its own harsh way, about you?

|1700 hours, 27th of Levitite|

Now there is time to be filled, or edited out. I must distract myself from my own waiting, or else tomorrow and the newscast with all its secrets, will never come. I wonder if the holo-transmission can be recieved in this system, is being recieved even now, while Tarkin and his little colored squares lean forward to watch, smiling dryly at the thought of making me wait. That I feel indignation is surprising, but somehow delightful, delicious, sweet and sour on the tongue. I need it, this annoyance, because it says that I, too, deserve respect, and I, too, deserve knowledge. Funny how that changed so quickly, my belief in my own importance, how the Stormtroopers, guards and bean-pole Admirals tricked me out of it. Part of it is my own fault, because I wasn't paying attention when they stole it from me.

You must know all about that, the stealing of things like love and honor and respect. Surely you know all the ways to slip it out from under your victims, while they are not looking. Now it is as if I am talking to a blurred image, a painting etched over with something else: the you of the time before, and the one who has taken your body. Why can't I be logical? Why can't I understand that the two of you are one, that there isn't any difference, that you have betrayed me completely? I saw it, I was there. 

The truth is, I am a time traveler. I lay here on the bed, then slip out of my body, traveling down roads known only to myself. That is why I can not concieve of Vader, who is you-but-not-you. I go back too much, and the present is all in grayscale, so that I am more apt to believe the vibrant colors of the time before. There is always a danger I won't find my way back, that my eyes will go dull. The medic droid will know what it is, he will say nothing can be done. Some Stormtrooper will roll me over, flat on my back and straight like a paperdoll. Blank, unyielding-- but he won't care. My eldest cousin, a girl with hair so blond that it was almost white, used to tease us-- the younger children-- saying that we would loose our bodies.

'Be careful when you go to sleep,' she'd say, hushed and close to our ears, so the adults wouldn't hear. 'Tie a ribbon around your hand, and then to the bedpost. Otherwise, when your body rolls over, your spirit might not come with it. Do you know what happens then?' We'd nod our heads, clinging to one anothers' chubby little bodies, mute with fear. 'Metal spiders come,' she'd intone wisely, 'the demons that live under Theed make them. They eat little souls, it's they're favorite food. Careful, or they'll come after you with their big pincers!" Her hands would leap at us, claw-like, transformed into spiders by our terrified imaginations. 

Sometimes, when I actually believe in Vader, I think that's what he must be. A black spider, a carnivor that crept up and sucked your soul inside, when you weren't looking. 

My sister and I tied ribbons around our wrists, like flat new veins, connecting them to the bedpost, then to each other.

We said to each other, 'I won't let them get you.'

See how easy it is, to fall back, a slow motion, without even thinking about it? Now I am in our apartment on Coruscant, in the bedroom with the tall windows curtained in crushed-rose-red. It is easy to remember the details, I never moved anything, even when I left to live with Bail. Instead, I stood in the doorway, Leia in one arm and my small bag in the other, memorizing. I wanted to freeze the room, hold it in my mind as a Sanctuary. I ran my eyes over the whole of it, even the cherry-wood cradles that made my heart clutch. The cradles are not there now, pushed up against the wall and lined in neutral white, because the twins have not yet been born. The bathroom, the red crystal and the door between us has not happened yet. The vanity is there, though, and the dresser that you carved yourself. Our wedding picture crowns the top, surrounded by lithe glass figures and detailed ship models. In the closet, your clothing hangs next to mine. This is marriage, an arrangement of two things composing a whole. The bed is large, sclupted yellow white and canopied, not with lace but with a smooth cloth that makes it look like a sailing ship. Outside, beyond the red cutrains, it is morning or midnight, I don't remember which. It doesn't matter, the door is locked and we have borrowed time from somewhere. One of my meetings, one of your training sessions? It is the second year of our marriage, we are still newly-weds, still accorded such things. 

I wake because I feel my hair sliding along my back, being lifted, played with. I stretch, moving in the thick sheets. 

"Anakin," I make my tone suspicious, "Are you braiding my hair to the bedpost again?" You laugh, shaking the pillows. 

"Of course not, darling," you say, trying to sound offended. I snort in disbelief, I have woken up before to find my hair bound carefully to the bedpost. Do you remember? You thought it funny, and even when I yelled at you, you swore up and down you'd never damage my braids. Presently, I roll over, fixing you with a dubious stare. 

"What *are* you doing, then?" You've flopped down at the bottom of the bed, working to where my hair brushes against the backs of my thighs. 

Smiling mischieviously, you say, "I got bored waiting for you to wake up. Hold on, I'm almost done." I'm giggling now, flattered as you take hold of the two braids and motion for me to sit up. The columns are twisted around, wrapped about my head, smoothed and tucked haphazardly by your large hands.

"Hand me my mirror," I straighten my back, looking at you with what you call my 'royal smile'. 

"Yes, your Highness," you mock. You hold my silver hand-mirror before me, so I can see the 'mess' you've made, but the first thing I see is your grin as you rest my head on your shoulder. My hair looks like a tiara, or thick like a wreath, with the ends of the two braids hanging down. 

"Poor girl's braids," My smile fell, if you'll recall, but I wouldn't tell you why. I'd said it so softly, you hadn't heard.

"Displeased, your Magesty?" you asked.

"No," I tried on another, different smile, "No." I shook my head, sent the braids tumbling down, their ends already loosening. "I just think I'm going to have to keep you from getting so bored." 

'Poor girls' braids'. I never did tell you why. 

There was a famine in my village when I was five.The sky closed up over itself, refused to rain, the mountain was drilled hopelessly for springs, and it seemed as if our collective lives were somehow evaporating in the heat. My memory is spotty, like a snake borrowing underground and then up again, but one day my Father loaded some of our things into bundles and strapped them to our backs. We walked- my Mother, Father, little sister and I-- five miles down the moutain side, our feet poised on rocks, splipping when the dry dirt caved; to get to a town with a transport system. 

'In the big city,' my Father kept repeating, 'I'll be able to find work. We'll have a fine apartment and you girls will go to the Plaza dances. Won't that be fun?" My sister and I were too busy crying our hunger to answer. I might not have heard him through it. My mother simply shook her head, the way she did when Father fibbed.

The city we went to was not Theed. It was not steaped in layers of tradition, it did not have grand walkways and ornate spires. Instead, square buildings like coffins rose to scrape the sky, which always seemed gray, not the blue of the moutain village. Once I told my sister that I would only marry someone with the sky in their eyes, blue going on forever. I wonder, now, if your eyes have turned to the coffin-scraped gray. My father had told the truth only in the most general sense. We did have an apartment; it was a one room square, with rags piled in the corners to make beds. My mother, always refined no matter what, carried in empty crates the delivery droids left behind because she wouldn't have us sit on the floor. My sister and I *did* see the Plaza dances, but we never attended them. Instead, we peeped at them secretly from side streets and alleys, watching the beautiful women twirl effortlessly, their long ornamental gowns like the folded wings of an angel.

The first memory is not of the city itself, but of my clothes. I wore a rough dress of blue, which slowly turned to brown, gray and black, the swatches my mother used to patch up the holes. The dress fell to my knees, brushing against the long colorless stockings that encased the rest of my legs. My mother tied an apron over the dress, a lighter color, then bound a strip of cloth around my waist. I was to carry the money my sister and I earned in there. In all the three years we lived in the city, I can only remember changing my shoes. My mother gave me her old ones, which were too big and had to be stuffed, giving mine to my sister.

'Poor girl's braids,' my mother would sigh as she plaited my hair. And she was right-- she did not have time to weave the intricate braids of highly-born women, nor could we afford to decorate my hair with ribbons and beads. Instead she wond the braids around my head, pulling them down over my ears for a hat in the winter time. To make up for it, she took a tiny clay vile, smaller than my palm and filled it with dried flowers. She tied it around my neck with a red ribbon she stole.

'This will keep you safe outside,' she whispered, touching the vile, then the ribbon, 'It brings good fortune. Red is the color of vibrant joy.'

Your lightsaber, the one you weild now, is red.

My mother wanted to keep me safe, you see. I was always outside, walking the narrow busy streets with my sister. We each carried two buckets tied to a pole and braced on our shoulders like a scale, filled with davi` fruit, and long skiny erdrits that grew in the spring. When I took the Throne of Naboo and the priestess placed the cool jewel of Zenda against my foredhead, I discovered that the weight of my people was the weight of those buckets, those scales, on my back. 

I'd call out in my loud, older sister voice, 'Fruits for sale! Fruits for sale!' And my sister, in her cute soprano would chorus, 'Cheap, very cheap!' The streets we worked were markets places, filled with activity, fine clothes and animals. Some of the poor families lined their children up, solem faced girls and boys with messy hair, to be rented out as servants. I didn't know that at the time, though, I thought they were being acutioned permanently. I was always careful to get as much money as much as I could-- I was afraid my parents would sell me too. 

'I'm a person and my name is Anakin.'

We have more in common than you thought.

Time distorts now, twists and brings me elsewhere. I am still in a rough blue dress and colorless stockings, but I have no apron and no clay vile to keep me safe. My hair tumbles down my back in the braids of a handmaiden; I stand uncertainly in the center of a shop, the heat clinging to me. You look up from your work, covertly at first, and then obviously. Your face is as childlike as the boys up for hire in the market-place of my childhood, your eyes the blue of long-lost mountain sky. The eyes of the person I told my sister I would marry. 

'An Angel. I heard the traders talking about them. They're the most beautiful creatures in the universe.'

My mother did not think I was beautiful. It was my mind, said she, that was my crowning glory. My face was too round, too much like the moon, and my gray eyes were unremarkable, the same for my hair. 

'You're so intellegent,' she would say, smiling secretively, 'You'll be the gem of Naboo one day.' Then shaking her head, 'No, the beauty went to your sister. She has the mind of a reed, though. Won't hold anything.' Her compliments were canceled out by her negative statements, but she seemed to distinguish between her two children this way. I was bright, my sister beautiful. It was me she despaired over, though, fearing a waste of my mind.

'Aou,' she'd scold my father in our tiny apartment, 'You have to make more money.' Her face would pinch with worry, 'At this rate Padme will grow up in a dirt hole, she'll never go to school. One of those horrid theaters will buy her for a waitress! Whatever will we do then! Aou," her voice rose as she gestured with her hands, "She'll wear those little silver dresses that don't cover anything. They're cut down to here! A dirty old man will make an offer right away, I'm sure.'

'Mother?' my voice, 'Make an offer about what?'

"Aou, you hush now," she had the uncanny ability to forget my presence entirely.

'You're the one always saying she's not pretty,' my father muttered. 'If she's not pretty, they won't buy her.'

'She's not pretty!' Mother again, sternly, 'It doesn't matter anyway, the theaters buy anyone. Dirty old men just want someone to lie with. Doesn't matter if she's young enough to be their daughter.' 

Later, when we moved to the farm in the mountains, with the vineyards I played hide and seek in, I was given my own room so that I could have peace and quite to study. My sister and my cousins-- all twelve of them-- had to share rooms, pushing and shoving to claim space as their own.

'Hush!' I'd hear my mother shout above them, 'Aou. Our smart Padme is studying now, so be quiet. Tomorrow she will walk to Frenyai to take her exam. If you don't hush, your shouting will bother her, and I will never forgive you.' I would hear her turn on her heel, stalking off to scold the younger aunts about how noisy their children were. Our household was large, all of us pressed together into a human machine that worked the land. Aunts were like older sisters, Uncles like second fathers, cousins became siblings. Nothing that happened ever went unnoticed. Yagoma has been flirting over the fence with a boy working the next pasture; Shidon got into a fight in village school; Uoke cried last night because she got a pimple. Meals were loud, filled with laughter and talking. 

I miss those. 

On days when I had an exam, my mother helped me dress. I wore long frocks then, in deep greens, reds, purples and golds. Her hands would smooth my thick, bright coat, the one with the gold buttons. She wove a matching ribbon into my hair, which was plaited with intracacy and no long those of a 'poor girl'. I still had the vile, and would clutch it as I walked or rode to the city holding the exam, holding my breath. 

'Let me do well,' I begged, 'I want to do well.'

At eleven, I scored highest in the region and was sent to Theed to train.

I never told you any of this. Our lives connected briefly at one point, then diverged again, came together. Do you remember, during our first year of marriage, how we took turns asking each other questions, one a day. Never about childhood, though, never before the first time we met. If I asked you about your life on Tatooine, you'd tell me about your mother instead, about her misadventures before she was captured by slavers. Now I think I should have told you, about how my sister and I begged in the streets, dressed in dirty clothes. How I was afraid I'd be sold into slavery.

Would it have made a difference?

At the Academy of Legislature Apprenticeship, they taught us about morality and justice, and how they aren't always the same thing. Sometimes, good people take the fall, even when they don't deserve it. Eyes on us, solem and scholarly: 'It's important that you understand the difference. Always act in the best interest of the people.' We'd nod, equally solem; girls in our gray, high-collared dresses with the wide front pockets. We'd fold our hands inside those pockets, hold on tight, reminding ourselves of the weight on our shoulders.

'Fruit for sale! Fruit for sale!' on the gray winter street.

I am not thinking about that now, though. I am thinking about Aiohi, the girl in the dorm room across from me. She came from a wealthy family, but her smile was real, and her black hair fell against the nape of her neck from its place in the bun. On holidays she would hold a meal for those of us who could not go home; her freckled hands passing out plates and cups laced with pale flowers. She brewed Iiopi, all by herself, the sweet honey-gold liquid that tasted like happiness, the red ribbon for vibrant joy. The Iiopi was placed in a copper soup tureen, and she carried it reverently, kneeling with grace and chanting the runes in her whispery voice. Aiohi ladled the Iiopi out carefully into our cups, which we held out with eagerness and a smile. 

'Teach me,' I begged her one holiday, 'Please? I want to learn how to serve the Iiopi.' I wanted to come to a full table, to kneel gracefully in my long dress, to pour the golden liquid into my guests' cups and have my hair brush against the nape of my neck when I bent my head. The table would be surrounded by my family, my children, little boys and girls, my husband with blue-sky eyes. I would be a household priestess, even when I was no longer in p0litics, even as my hair turned gray and my children married, giving me grandchildren. In my childish, twelve year old way, I promised myself I would give Iiopi to those I loved. 

I never served any to you.


	5. Sympathetic Magic

You might want to check the weather forecast in hell, or at least make sure the Horsemen of the Apocalypse aren't making their way down the street. I NEVER thought I'd manage to touch this story again, and I certainly won't be surprised if no one remembers it. So now I'll shut up and let you read.

This is dedicated to Leia_Naberrie. Because she never gave up on me. 

Date Begun: January 14th, 2004 

Date Finished: January 20th, 2004 

****

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__

From Where Ever I Am To You 5/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

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****

|0300 hours, 28th of Levitite| 

Sometimes I wonder if the real world-- the one with all the colors, the one without the locks-- has gone away. Faded, passed-- as you have-- into shadow. Into a land I can not comprehend. That's why I have to see a newscast, or else I am falling in a room with no sides. I'll come loose, come _undone_, as opposed to something done, finished, fully made. I hold my tongue, even as Tarkin circles me like a spider, clicking and spinning poisoned, sugar words. 

"Lady Vader, are you well?" 

"Lady Vader, did you sleep?" 

"Lady Vader, have you eaten?" 

I always say I have, even if the reverse is true. My mother taught me pride, which is more important than an empty stomach. 

He's so polite, almost sickeningly fond, as if I am his charge. A wayward niece, essentially good, who must be shown the way. 

"How are you today, Lady Vader?" 

I would run him through, I think, face blank and filled with a serenity I have borrowed from somewhere. I think about it, this killing of my enemy, but there is no where to escape to, and anyways he is only a symptom of the problem, and not the cause. I rationalize, I explain. It's hard to find the energy to hate, or to care. It's hard to figure out if I should bother to manage. 

When I was a student in the Theed Academy of Law, we girls held our philosophy primers in front of our stirring chests, close, like shields into battle. We learned the names of great thinkers; Queens, Princes and Scholars. People with the time to wonder, looking up at the ceiling, waiting for sleep to come. We raised our green-branch voices to chant; 

"To uphold the law is my duty, 

The essence of the law is compassion. 

If even one of my people is denied justice, 

Then I am slain." 

I think about this; the ultimate sympathy, a sort of magic. A cut on my neighbor's hand, and a gash mirrors on my own flesh. Appearing without cause, without my own will. In the shower, to which I am escorted daily (such a dangerous seven or eight feet!), I look at my feet. Covered with welts, with blood bruises and peeling flesh, they only hurt when I think about them. 

Who does this belong to, this patch of over exposed skin? 

What about this scar, the fading shadow of flesh pulled together in some operation I can not remember? 

And the scar, just below my ribs. Straight through, impaled (which sounds like 'inhaled, drawn into my body'), like a butterfly on an examination disk. So sterile that there isn't any blood at all. 

Was there blood, Ani? 

A light saber would cauterize the wound as it went through, but I really don't remember. I was falling, so sweetly, a downward motion; a negative of 'falling in love'. I saw the high ceiling, the ornamental tiles, heard Palpatine's laughter and saw my ghost-wraith face reflected in the void of your mask, but... 

Oh, I don't want to talk about this anymore. 

Instead, I touch numb fingertips to my wounds, dreaming silently. A blind prophetess who sees everything too late, and all too soon. 

If you feel a little pinch, Ani, under your armor, without cause or reason-- that's me. That's me, in the 'fresher on board the Unquestioned Command, raking uncut nails over my chest to make sure that I am alive. 

But then, you may not notice that, on top of everything else. 

****

|2100 hours, 28th of Levitite| 

It seems so long ago. Anything, everything. 

None of this has happened. I made it all up! 

All of it, and I am a lonely woman at the bottom of the ritual well in Theed Temple, hip deep in the water and my own internal clockwork. A nervous, daydreaming virgin, lowered there by my family to be healed by the Deeps and their annoyed, well-meaning concern. 

If only it were that easy. 

Or else I am a flicker in the darkness, a flash in the pan, that has convinced itself it is feeling and alive. My memories of Teacher Ingeb, spouting philosophy as she smoothed her self-important bun back behind her ears, are nothing. Mere self-delusion. Except there is no self to delude. No me to ache, to hurt, and no you to waver (reality, fantasy, terror) between extremes. 

I think I would deal better with you never having been, then with loosing you. 

But, actually, I did rather poorly in first year Nubian Thought. 

And anyway, that's too easy, and it doesn't work that way. 

You, me, we're here; all of it so solid it could slit any number throats. Real and concrete, absolutely impossible to take back. I know this; it was rather vague yesterday, and I may not know it tomorrow but, for now, I know. 

I know, because I saw you today. 

I think I'm starting to get a little desperate. 

I told myself I had forgotten, or else I was not that naive and never expected anything at all. It would be very much like the beanpole Admiral Tarkin, who knows what pleasure it is to give, and to with hold. So sorry, my dear. A gentlemanly, elderly pat on my hair or-- more brazen!-- my cheek. I told myself he never intended to let me see a newscast, that I had known this from the start. I made this my reality, looking at the light trickling under my sealed door. 

'Day' shift, then. 

I stood up carefully, checking the safety of the TypePad, and pulled the blankets back up over the mattress. I came to the center of the room, under the unlit glow fixture, and lay down. Arms out, palms up, feet pointed perfectly-- a diagram of a human woman, or else a snow-angel, still born. Eyes open, I lay looking up at the ceiling. This is different from the upward staring I do in my bed. 

The change of location makes it exotic. 

A shaft of light, then-- the door opening. Tarkin's shadow, the negative of his soul, was impossibly more longer and prone to sting than the Admiral himself. Far too heavy for me to lay in, and I rolled onto my side, chin up, like a child caught doing something wrong. 

"Lady Vader, I hope I'm not--" he paused, looking at me rather than through me, and blinked. "Are you alright?" Because, of course, regular people do not lie on the floor, staring upwards into a nothing that has no answers, and would not give them if it had any. 

"I hurt," I said, loosely connecting this statement with my position on the floor. It wasn't a lie-- I hurt all the time, now. But then? No more than usual. 

"We'll have to have you looked at," he frowned, saying this as if I was some object d'art, a relic to be appraised. He raised a colorless eyebrow, "We wouldn't want you getting ill." 

Dear Admiral, I should relish the circumstance, and be sure to throw up all over your shoes. 

I was heaved up by a pair of storm troopers-- something Tarkin ignored. They stood suspending my body between them, uncertain of me or my feet. 

"Today is the day, Lady Vader." 

I should have repeated his title, searchingly, in question. As if he had paused me in the Senate lounge-- 'oh, and you are?' or 'my, where does the time go?' 

I am a busy woman, Admiral. My hours are pregnant with fear and my aloneness, and they have no room for you. 

I didn't. I cast my gaze down and away, unable to look eager, unable to look anything at all. I have trouble feeling my face these days. Surely you understand. 

So I was propped up, escorted, a little ceremonial doll tottered along behind the priest, to a room with a long black table. The walls were gray, but I didn't notice this until later. What I saw was the vid-projector, crouched in the middle of the table like a single, unblinking eye. 

Should I make this a holiday, something to celebrate-- as Tarkin no doubt intends? Shall I clutch it closely, this glimpse out the window, and think 'how lucky!', as if this is some treasure. Something I don't deserve. The taste of the word, bestow-- I have no right to anything, and shall there for be ruled. 

No. Instead, I shall tell you what I saw. 

Having not really thought this far, I was surprised to find fear weaving between my ribs. I was afraid, afraid to open the window, like the Princess in the stories, who hears the marching footsteps in the street, keeping her shutters closed, so long that the world around her falls to dust. Maybe I'm better off not knowing. Maybe I can't take the truth, _handle_ it, as if it is something with sharp edges. Would Tarkin stand there, watching the flicker of color over my flesh, searching for the weakness called reaction? I held my breath, so long that, when he turned and walked away, I saw darkness shifting before my eyes. The storm troopers stood on either side of the threshold as the door closed, watching me, or at least appearing to. I think my hand trembled as I reached out for the activation switch-- I am no longer used to doing things for myself. 

And also, it seemed to easy. There had to be more to it, one more hurdle to jump, one more pretentious sentence from the Admiral to endure. 

But then there were images, leaping to life in front of me, and I had no thoughts for anything else. The opening of a government-run news program, probably the only kind there are, functional and plain. A story on shipping lanes between three different systems-- I watched the clip of spacecraft with something approaching wonder. Surely these things only existed in my mind, surely there was no world outside the many gray walls I've seen. Next, a view of Coruscant, which looks the same no matter what era it is, no matter who rules. The statues of Palpatine, robed like some underworld god, seemed so small as to only be smudges on the white surface. 

I like thinking that way. 

I watched with baited breath, all these things that would have bored me, or lulled me to sleep on the couch in my apartment. Did I once go where I pleased, when I pleased? Have a name other than the one your shadow has attached to me, love and work and get headaches that had nothing to do with loneliness and everything to do with the impossible traffic on Coruscant? 

It seems impossible, now. Pure fiction, a fairy story. 

And yet... 

And yet all these things must have happened-- there must be something in the outside world I still strive to protect, because I held myself so still, because I swallowed my gasp of joy when I saw Leia. 

I sat on my hands, so as not to reach out, to graze that translucent, little girl image and made the vid projector jump in protest. I told myself that no matter what, I must show nothing on my face, that it might be a trick, or else any show of emotion on my part might implicate her, might cause their gaze to linger on her over-long. 

She is beautiful. 

She IS. She is real and alive and-- thank you, Force-- present tense. Is. 

She was dressed in long, burgundy robes, the golden embroidery too heavy and ornate for such a small girl. But she stood so tall, her hair pulled back away from her just-slightly-plump cheeks, she walked like a Queen with her small hand in Bail's. How long has it been? I loose time, I slip through the cracks, but there she was-- three, four, precocious and tottling on coltish feet. These years are not mine; to me, she is still a baby, still fitted neatly into the curve of my arm, in the shadow of my breast. These are stolen years, murdered years, and I should be thankful that she _lives_ but all I can think of is that she lives without me. Who braids her hair, who makes sure not too pull to hard on her thick locks? Who draws the quilts up around her, and banks the fire in her room? There are scrapes to be bandaged, baths to be given, kisses to be received. All of these things are not done by me. All of these things are dwindling, and she will grow up, all the chances for childhood gone. I watched her face as the announcer spouted something about House Organa paying their respects. So animated, so feeling, and far too like the images in my mother's vid-albums for my comfort. Time has washed me away from her, but it has left my face. 

Of course, you know what comes next. You were there-- and you can not know the terror I felt then, so complete and real that, as much as I was sure I had known fear before, I hadn't truly until then. It owned me, this fright, as I watched Bail bent his knee to you briefly. I thought, 'Oh, Force, why show me _this_, of all things?' She would be given over to you, it would be as it was in my nightmares, and she would be your scrying mirror, a treasure in a tall glass tower. 

A mother's fear is irrational, without polite restraint or understanding or timing. I knew only that, as in the stories of my youth, I would rage across the universe to find and be even with those who hurt my own. In that moment, it seemed possible. 

And then; Leia curtsied awkwardly, turning to follow Bail back down the aisle. This was no giving over, no claiming of what was yours-- she slipped in and out like a shade. Except-- 

Except she paused, hand falling from Bail's hold, to look back at you, eyes wide, watching you. And you were watching her, I know; had been, the entire time, like a flame you couldn't keep your eyes off of. I could feel it on my skin, even through your mask. Sympathetic magic, again. What were you thinking, Ani? Were you rattling around, there in the endless confines of your armor? Did you think she was my ghost, come back to pull you down with me? Did you think she was Bail's daughter, but also my own? What did you see, written behind her child's eyes, before Bail reached and drew her hurriedly away. 

She's right under your nose! She's not hidden safely at all, damn Obiwan, damn Bail and damn me. She flits on the edge of your world, and I don't see how you can't see it; that she is flesh of your flesh, blood of my blood. She sleeps in a stranger's house, calls another man father, bares another man's name. She is not yours, and you must know it. 

But Ani, she is not mine either. 

Not anymore. 

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ 

[to the tune of the 'The Brady Bunch'] 

__

This is the story of a writer named Mere, 

Who was very bad and neglected her fic. 

She was so very easily distracted, 

she was one crazy chick. 

This is the story, of a girl named Mere, 

Who was lured away from SW by fandoms great and small, 

Stargate, Sentinel and Quantum Leap, 

You bet she tried them all. 

Until one day, her muse blew in from Vegas, 

And said, "Baby have a I got a surprise for you!" 

Now she's back to writing Star Wars, 

And if you give her feedback, she'll love you! 


	6. Playing Dead

__

AUTHOR'S NOTES:

*Meredith eyes Carol, who is currently lounging on the sofa, eating Godiva chocolate and smirking like the devil* 

What can I say? When she's good, she is _very_ good, and when she's bad, she's _awful_. 

NOTE ABOUT THE FIC: Since this was started back before AOTC came out, I'm still trying to reconcile my original plan with some of the new info in the film. Needless to say, once Ep3 comes out, this will be an AU. It is an AU from my other fic, "The Widow Skywalker", in that Padme doesn't go to Alderaan with Leia. Confused yet? So I am I! *cries* Anyway, I justed wanted to say that, in case some things (like Keronji the Stormtrooper-- who would have to be an Officer, now) don't quite match up. I think I'll have to do some revising. 

Okay, I'll shut up now. 

OUR FEATURE PRESENTATION: 

(is sponsored by Milano cookies, Diet Pepsi, and the Chinese film "Three". If you can find it, get your hands on it RIGHT NOW.) 

====================================

**__**

From Where Ever I Am To You 6/?

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

====================================

|1400 hours, 30th of Levitite|

I'm having trouble telling this story.

Perhaps because it is not a story, it's just me; sitting or laying or standing here, looking at the ceiling and describing everything in ravenous, vicious detail. This is perception–in many ways it _is_ all in my head, but not enough so that it gives me any comfort. It's just me, my echo, my shadow. When it's late at night and I roll over, stirred by the inner workings of my bone-marrow clock, I am the only sound I hear. That, and the hum of the ship's engines, so constant that it works its way into your body. So that you don't notice it, anymore.

Do you notice, Ani? The sweeping, hissing sound your change makes? Or have you become used to it? Normal is what you are used to, what is usual, what you have become accustomed to. Is this ordinary, Ani?

When I think about it, it gets hard to breathe, and I wonder–what makes my lungs move, when I'm not thinking about it? And then I have to think about it, for fear that if I don't

Last night, I dreamt I was in a chill courtyard, watching crimson berries fall from a tree. There were red birds in the branches, wings fluttering, shaking, and as the berries hit the ground, I put my foot out, crushing them against the stone. I watched them bleed, out from under my shoes. Just memory, imagery. I must have done that once, bored and waiting for someone. 

When I woke, it occurred to me that I should destroy this.

I should. I should rend this type pad in two, crush it's delicate crystals and cords with my weight, or else put it in the fresher sink, drown it as one does unwanted farm animals. This is the truth, and I can't afford it. I'm broke, as they say–different from _broken_, I'm all out, I'm running on empty. Except, there is no place to run. I should do it to save Leia, to ensure her safe harbor of smoke and mirrors remains always wavering, a ghost-image, at the corner of your eye. It is she that could be hurt by this–I have no Rebel Secrets, nothing of any value to anyone but me. 

My child, my _daughter_. The child who, because there is sparingly little mercy in this universe, looks like me. 

Did I ever tell you that I was afraid, having your son? They brought him to me, all sun-sand hair and blue, blue eyes-- he was such a beautiful baby, all the shades there for a handsome boyhood, for a man with your coloring and my high cheeks. I thought-- because I was naive then, at least more so than I am now, and still held out some hope-- that I couldn't bear it if he should grow up to look like you. How would I manage to sit across from him at the table, to eat or laugh or ruff his hair without thinking 'he looks like Anakin'? How would I keep this, this sad, sweet, bitter feeling, from crawling down my finger tips and into my little boy? Perhaps I would become used to it, stop thinking of it as your face and see it as his. In time, I would see your picture, or remember you and think-- 'oh, he looks like Luke', only to realize a moment or too later, that you were the one who came before.

I don't know, and I won't know-- not now. 

I can't destroy this, I can't! I can't get away from this feeling, that-- as long as I keep putting the words down-- I will be able to stay.

Stay what? Stay hopeful? That would imply I had hope to begin with, and I really don't recall. Stay sane? This is all my perception, memory and jumble. An abstract; turn it one way, a bathing woman. But upside down, backwards? The epic slaughter of a city, or a bullet car rushing on towards home. This is a painting, with words, by my hand-- of what I see, of who moves around me, and everyone else is a caricature, whether intentional or not.

This frustration owns me, you know. I keep thinking-- a TypePad used to be a tool to me, a toy. Break one, buy another? The purse is a little lighter, but nothing more than that. 

And now, now I _need_ this–someone to talk to. I define, I describe, I analyze and do everything but really look at the awful, hell-mouth fact that I

I'm not sure. Oh, Leia–I'll say the same prayers my mother did, face lifted to the serene, marble faces that expressed the different aspects of the Force. When I was a child, I thought that's what it really was; a face, faces, watching me from a mirror that was broken in that, while not shattered, it refused to reflect. Beautiful faces, of women (child, virgin, mother, matron), men, warriors and _tensh_. That's a Nubian word, hard to explain. A beautiful creature, not wholly of earth or of sky. A

Oh, never mind. 

But Prayer–that I will mind, will forever mind. Despite doubt, without hope. (Or am I contradicting myself?) I will pray that my daughter is stronger than her mother, that she can see more readily into the hearts of all beings, that she be careful and quick–like the wolf, leiyah, that I named her for. And, dear Force, don't ever, ever let her fall in love. Love–yes-- as a verb, as an action; she can be in love, know love, but just don't ever let her _fall_.

Am I a horrible mother, Anakin? I've no practice at this at all. So selfish that I can't forgo this one thing and ensure my daughter's safety. I would be, I could be, as silent as the grave. I will destroy this, I will–someday, I and all my words shall be swallowed so that even you can not follow us. Someday, I'll break this, make sure no one will ever read what I've put down. 

Someday. But not today. 

And for that, I have no one to fault but myself. 

****

|0400 hours, 1st of Valaehan|

Half wakeful, I lay in my virginal twin bed, drifting on the heat trapped between the sheets, tracing my fingers over the fretwork on the quilt. It was a Winter Circle present from my mother, handmade in collusion with my aunts. The red, silken thread feels fluid under my finger tips-- stitching joy, faith, kindness, gentleness, strength, determination. The qualities one hopes for in a daughter. I have only recently returned from holiday, and the halls of the Academy and surrounding Dormitories are still with our halfhearted attempt to settle into routine. Slowly, I lay my cheek against the pillow, watch the chill, white light come through my window and settle like a cat on the floor. In a few minutes, Utanen-- who's room is next to mine-- will burst in without preamble, caroling, encouraging. I'll pull the quilt up over my head and curse her with words nice girls aren't supposed to use, listening to her laugh in response.

"Come on," she'll say, tossing her short, dark bob of hair-- it's stylish in the smaller continent, her homeland, but hopelessly out of fashion in Theed. "The cooks are getting started in the kitchen-- let's lift some pastries and head in town." Pulling off my covers, she'll shake her head as I clutch my nightshift closer-- "You're so modest!"-- and reach for my hands. "There's a merchant on Citadel Street who's selling scarves, all the way from Corellia." 

I'll pretend to think about this, accepting the dressing gown she tosses my way and eyeing the books piled on my desk. Students in the final series of four years, like myself, get their own rooms. My walls are covered with mediocre reproductions of landscapes and goddesses-- I have a bed, a desk, shelves and my own little fresher. As big as my little hovel in the attic of the farming compound, but somehow more deliciously free-- perhaps, because no one will ever bang on the broom on my door, or gather near the vent on the stairs and giggle so the sound carries. 

"I'm hungry," I'll admit with a hand over my flat, never-borne-children stomach, "so I'll be happy to steal pastries with you. But I have too much studying to do to go into town with you today."

"It's not stealing," Utaten will insist, as always. We'll slip on our shoes and hold our dressing gowns out of the way as we descend the back stairs. The cooks tolerate us with fond indulgence, deliberately looking the other way when our slim hands dart up onto the counters. "It's borrowing, without permission."

"You can't borrow food," I'll snort. 

"Come into town with me," my friend will plead, one last time, "you know you work too hard."

Your voice now, saying the same thing to me-- "You work too hard, Padme." There's a smooth, cool surface under my cheek; I've fallen asleep at my desk again, flimsi-plast papers scattered under my finger tips. The bindings of my dress dig uncomfortably into my ribs and I resist the urge to stretch, knowing I'll be sore. Your breath is warm, soundless-- so soundless!-- comforting against my ear in the sterile enclosure of the office. Slowly, you put your arms around me, loosening the ties and ribbons under the ornamentation at my back, then lift me into your arms. Is it only the memory of this feeling that makes me queasy, makes me wish your wouldn't cradle me against you, a half-asleep, frozen china doll? At the time, I must have liked the feeling, to have let you get away with it. Your arms must have made me feel safe, supported-- you were closer to me than anyone else had ever been. 

"Ani, someone is going to see," I protest, voice muffled in the fabric of your robe. It's not soft-- that's not a luxury the Jedi would allow-- but neither is it rough. It is as if it isn't really there at all, and I can feel you all the way to your skin. 

"All the sane people around here have gone to sleep," you point out, unpinning my hair and draping it's length over your shoulder. "In actual beds, no less! I'm not due at the Temple for at least twelve cycles." Never the less, you take the lift furthest from the main hall, your hands clenching their hold on me a tad too tightly. 

Or perhaps I imagined that, am imagining it, now.

In my bedroom, which is really our bedroom (so foolish were we, to leave even that evidence!), you pull back the sheets and lay down beside me, your head pillowed on my breast as I shrug all the way out of my gown. It falls half-way off the bed-- you kick it fully away, saying that you missed me and love me and just want to lay here for a while and not think. Your voice is young, painfully so, as you comb your fingers through my hair.

"I'm not a child," I say, equally soft, "You don't have to take care of me, Ani."

"Of course," you bite back gently, "you're a terribly old woman, ageless even, robbing me from my master's cradle."

We laugh, even though it really isn't funny.

Someone is laughing, anyway-- perhaps it's not me. No, no, it's Sola and the cousins, outside in the orchard and it's summer, sweet like the shine on an rigo fruit. Full lipped pink, soft and inviting. I slide out of bed, stand naked in front of the mirror as I wash my body with a soft lavender cloth. It is the summer before I took the throne of Naboo; I don't recognize the woman in my reflection, with her small breasts and rounded curves. The air is heavy with the smell of flowers and possibilities, almost cloying. I am giddy, I think I am grown up, I think I have it all figured out-- or at least enough of it that I can make my way.

I do, I do make my way-- with small, gliding steps towards the throne, coronation robes heavy and soft against my skin. Or to the ship, dressed in handmaidens robes, sending Sabe looks of affirmation or question. We are brave-- we must be brave, because we have no other option. There are droids and tanks in the streets and (oh, mother! sola! papa!) the countrysides have been over run. I am brave, but also breathless. It's too hot on Tatooine, this nowhere planet, and all I can see is the way to Coruscant, barred by a damaged ship. Even with the twin suns safely bellow the horizon, there's a suffocating heat hidden in the desert-night chill and I roll over on my pallet. You are standing there, over me, all of nine years old, blue eyes glittering and never moving from me. You offer me a glass of water. I hadn't realized I was thirsty. 

I am thirsty, and I wake. I am on a thin mattress, type pad hidden between it and the wall, in a gray room, on a Star Destroyer called the Unquestioned Command. 

And, because this is the worst place to be, I know that I am truly awake this time.

Like a child, waking to see the water-clock slipping towards the day, I am tempted to simply roll over and ignore the passage of moments. I could let them collect on the floor, endlessly, a sea I must wade through to go anywhere. Wasted time. But my mind is too heavy, I sink down to a place past sleep, underneath it, so that I am frozen and staring at things I can not control. You told me once, early in our marriage, that you kept a picture of me in the small metal trunk afforded all Higher Officers in the Republican fleet. The clones didn't get them, of course-- they had nothing of their own, not even a name to distinguish them. They were tools that marched into battle, no different from the droids save that their wires were veins and their casing flesh. I felt very bad about that, and still do; who were we to make them alive, if we wouldn't let them live? 

Bail said I thought about it too much-- the damage had already been done.

But you, and the few hundred Jedi remaining, you were soldiers, and certainly less expensive. It disconcerted me, in the beginning, to think of you in the army. A Jedi, certainly, a solitary warrior and sage of our bindings, but a soldier? A _Commander_, as they called you? It seemed vaguely ridiculous, like you were a child again, playing at being something you weren't. I remember my boy-cousins, on the farm, with their little plastic blasters-- the ones that bothered my aunts so, because they were forever having to pick them up. They'd hide out in the tall grass, the boys, popping up and flickering the play-laser over each other and passersby. 

"You're dead!" they'd cry at their target. Invariably, the response was-- "Oh, no I'm not! You _missed_!" Ueko, who was a girl but aimed better than any of them, was forever playing dead when they *had* hit her, not disputing. They never returned the courtesy.

So I think about you, being a soldier that _knows_ whether or not the blaster has missed, laying in your bunk on whatever transport, with just your little metal locker to your name. You told me the trouble Obiwan gave you, just having my image tucked into the lining at the top. Later, your Master would yell at me, rave, in one of the few times I saw his expression set in anything other than aggressive calm. 

'I should have known!' he cried while I clutched the folds of my gown, angered-- for the moment-- less by your disappearance and more by the fact I had to face Kenobi alone. Did he look at you, holding my picture, the way he looked at me that day? Eyes narrowed, like the word 'disappointment', jaw set sharply? He said I'd stabbed him in the back-- but he had no room to talk. He took my baby, he erased Luke from me with an efficiency that gives me no room to pity or sympathize with the older Jedi. What did he know, of betrayal, of 'back stabbing', as they say? I know what it feels like, to be stabbed and to be stabbing, and so do you. We were there. 

Bang. I shot you. 

Don't even try to tell me I missed. 

Sometimes, this whole thing is like a vid-production. I fastfoward, watching my life become a frantic scampering, lips and hands moving too fast, or slow down. Moments in unbearable freeze frame; your face, Leia's, Luke's, Sabe's. I skip entire scenes, flitting back and forth, referencing wildly. I mute-- like your hand reaching for the controls as we cradled on the lounge, flesh, mouths touching-- so that there is no sound. Just imagery and breathless, unborn sighs. 

And all of this is moving too fast and too slow, overwritten by what happens next. The truth, warped and influenced into reconstruction.

The truth-- Obiwan was very liberal with the truth, and I am only now beginning to appreciate how liquid a thing it is. 

"Anakin is dead," he told me at first. You were, but he was also lying-- boldly, without repentance, in the face of my widow's tears.

"His murder is called Vader."-- and I saw just how much his face never betrayed. He thought I didn't know, he never imagined you might reach out to me as I lay dreaming, pulling me down into the lava with you, begging me to give you my hand. I knew, I turned my face from Obiwan and said, "You assume too much." 

Then, "Luke is safe." Of course, I do not know if this is all the truth, half of it, or just a sip. What does "safe" mean to Obiwan? Forgive me, Master Kenobi, if I no longer take your words at face value. 

All of this is what he told me, but what did he tell you? Did he say I had betrayed you to the order, confessed our 'sin' of marriage-- when my hand was forced? Did he tell you your son was dead, still born (which sounds less like death and more like an ongoing process) and that all that tied you to me once was cut? Did he offer to let you back into the fold, if only you would forget, repent? I have never understood the Jedi creed, the denial of some of the things that make us alive, in favor of others. Anger happens-- ignoring it, suppressing it, doesn't make it go away. Sadness, manic happiness, healthy fear... all these things make us Sentient. Love...

Well. 

He certainly wouldn't have reminded you that I loved you.

Loved. Love. Loving. 

Past, present-- conjugation. All of these things are true; 'from a certain point of view'.

I can't help but wonder what you think, Ani. Is my memory laced with fear, anger, desire, sadness, or love? 'Love' is such a stupid sounding word that doesn't say what it means, but it sounds no better in any language I know.

Jah aime.

Wei ai oh. 

Pretty, but insufficient. 

Do you think of me at all?

Am I your wife, and you my widower? You could believe me to be dead, or you could simply not care, content to leave me to the Emperor's _tender_ mercies. My ghost could walk with you, trailing after you like the rest of the vengeful dead. 

Do you hate me, Anakin? Or do you just put a lot of effort into it, like me?

I wonder what you're doing-- if you're doing it because you think it's right. It might well be that you regret what you've done but refuse to undo it. You'll see it through, with your chin held level with the word 'pride'. 

We're a lot alike, that way.

You wanted order. You wanted to be free of the Jedi rules. You wanted the galaxy to stop arguing and get down to business. Is it everything you thought it would be?

Did you see to it that the slaves on Tatooine were manumitted, Ani? You always said you would. Did you see that their masters let them loose, that they could live as People instead or beasts? Or did you slaughter them, as I suppose the Emperor might have willed you to?

Loosed from their bonds, or dead–either way, they are free. 

You should be more careful to distinguish, in the future. 


	7. The Fever Sets

* * *

_**From Where Ever I Am To You 7/?**  
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory (garnettrees) _

* * *

** 10:00 hours, 2nd Valaehan **

I woke late this morning. The sun, bright and magnified by the ivory towers of Coruscant streamed through the narrow windows of our apartment, falling over my half-nude body like a second blanket. It was not the warmth that woke me, but your muttered cursing. I rolled over, feeling my braid-- which you had only half-undone the night before-- trail behind me.  
"Anakin?" I asked softly, stretching. You turned and smiled at me, so fondly, watching the movements of myself and my shadow on the bed. _'When you first wake up, you stretch like a nikki,'_ you told me once. A nikki-- for me, a name with no reference. To you, a mammal, imported to Tatooine by the wives of rich lords who had nothing better to do. Slim and soft, none of them lasted long on your desert world, but you saw one, once, when you were sold to Gardola the Hutt. You came closer to the bed, touched your real hand to my cheek, trailed it down my neck.  
"I overslept," you said, rolling your shoulders. So like a little boy, with your hair falling in your face, it was easy to forgive you anything. "Obiwan will be expecting me back at the Temple, soon."  
"Like that?" I asked, smiling, gesturing to your bare chest and half-done trousers. Pulling my light, sheer robe off the bedpost, I began moving with you, sorting through the clothes we shed the night before. We laughed, your robes decadently strewn beside my stockings, my under shift draped across a chair.

I think about that, now-- in the real now, which is not muddled by my memories and my traitorous sleeping mind. Here is the room aboard 'The Unquestioned Command', with its small rug, and two lamps. Here is the twenty-two steps I can take, toe to heel, before I come to the wall, and am forced to turn back again. Our apartment on Coruscant was perhaps only twice this size-- I paid for it myself, under another name, as neither of us could be seen too much in one another's official rooms. It was just a small main room, with a squat, Alderaanian style flat-stove, and-- behind our meager low couch and table-- the sliding screened door to the bedroom. It was cream, I remember, far bigger than the other room, with a dresser and night stand where we stored the few things we left there permanently. Your ship models, my Nubian watercolors, the presents you brought me, like clockwork, from your travels. Small tokens we bought together. We would leave the little stove on in the other room, to help with the heat-- the light would come in through the deep, pink silk panels of the screen, fall over the floor like translucent flower petals, or else the wings of starflies, shed in the spring. The existence of this room was a puzzle to me; it was ours, and it was evidence. Damning for the piles of extra clothes laid side by side in the drawers, for our brushes and combs, hanging next to the sink. Our makeshift fresher. His and Hers, Yours and Mine. Each time I opened the door, my throat closed with irrational fear, certain that this time there would be disapproving faces clustered in the small space, frowning.  
_"How could you?"_ they would say. As if I had defied some law of gravity, breached some terrible barrier. It would be ugly and crass, like the holo-news stories I so loathed as a girl; a young couple run off together, a lady arriving for a rendezvous with her lover, only to take the fall. That's what it would be-- a fall, an endless one, where you stomach goes down and down. They would look at me, measure me. _"How could you?"_  
How would I tell them that it was not a matter of 'could'?  
We just _did_.

Did we really once undress each other, laughing, sighing, toss our marks of status away without heed? Did I love you, sleep beside you, and hear only the hum of the stove and your sweet, uneven breath? Tell me I'm making up stories! Tell me I'm lying. I try to imagine you, imagine my body being touched by someone other than me. It always seemed as if you were slipping your fingers under my skin, layer by layer, reaching for something vague and indefinite within. I'd put my hands in your hair, when you were permitted to grow it into the mane of a Knight, hold onto both of your hands.  
It doesn't seem real.

Every now and again, you would sleep in my bed, in the quarters attached to my senatorial office; I would lay there, on nights you were away, and be able to conjure you there. I had a picture in my mind; you had been there, it was possible, if unlikely.  
Could you see me, as easily, in your narrow ship's bunk or worn bedroll? Lovers thrive on small space-- hip to hip, nose to nose. You never moved far from me in your sleep, anyway. Or was I an anachronism, something out of place with the life you lived on assignments, where you fell asleep-- as you told me-- to Obiwan's long snores? Sometimes, during midday break, I would stare at the monolith of the temple, towering just beyond the Senate building. Those gates were closed to me, to anyone outside the tight-walled Jedi ranks.  
Somewhere between those thick, myriad columns, you lived a life discussed only academically, in books full of theory and philosophic lore. I imagined you as I had first met you, small and determined, like a colt convinced of its racing breed. Something changed you, something lived there; thousands of Jedi, voices echoing down from the past. A changeless, stable world.  
Now, of course, it has been rent in two.

Most nights, I dream I am wandering through those endless, foreign hallways, like a single stone riddled through by determined insects. I run, the hiss of your breath at my heels, in my heart, until it is as if the whole building is breathing. Crouched in small spaces, I escape you only by narrow margin, again and again. Weak and trembling, I wonder why it is you always find me-- I grasp at my breast, as if to slow my heart beat by hand, and find instead the japor snippet.  
It is as bright as a star, radiant with it's own light; it is a beacon that ties me to you.

I wake, and am annoyed with my subconscious for being so obvious.

** 22:00 hours, 6th of Valaehan **

Does time move? Today, after my shower, I sat on the still-warm bathroom tile and stared at the clock on the wall. A small one, up near the corner, with a purely functional holo display. Spartan as the rest of the chamber, but also somehow superfluous-- it included seconds as well as minutes and hours. Numbers changing, clicking, on and on and on, like the simplest of math tables.  
One plus one is...  
One times one is...  
One split by one is...  
One doesn't make all that much of a difference, does it?

I deal in contradictions these days, like a festival woman in her bright, billowing garb, gesturing to all manner of things. I was looking at the clock, but I don't know how much time passed. Instead, I was thinking about seconds, about them ticking by, tiny microbes too small for hands to hold. They slip through. Does time move? It must. Days pass, the clock changes. My hair is just past my shoulders, wavy, like the mane of some wild creature. We had those on Coruscant, remember? Nothing native, of course-- just escaped exotic pets, the one or two heads that might be missing from a herd shipment. They were manic and trustless, these animals. You could see that they'd been chewing on wires, nosing around in refuse no sentient being would touch. Little beggars, tiny madmen. Nothing like the great, lumbering beasts of your desert home, or the graceful, amphibious beings of mine. On Coruscant, they became wild in a way that wasn't natural, you could see it in their eyes. Like a fire back there, burning, all the wrong color. I look like that, I think, in the mirror-- some underworld waif, or a shade of Days Gone By. Capital letters, same as you do for wars and great changes. That, too, is time-- great chunks of it, like gray sunblasted rock, flaking off in your hands.  
I lay in my bunk, drifting in and out of sleep; I sit on the antiseptic bathroom tile and watch the numbers, such talented contortionists, shape and reshape.  
At least, until my white-skulled guardian raps on the door and asks me what's taking so long.  
When I figure it out, you'll be the first to know.

**15:00 hours, Day Shift**

My hands ache. Holding them over these crowded keys, I flex them, watch the movements of bone and sinew, the rounded knuckles and narrow finger tips. The body has its own memory, and the act of typing is not enough for my hands. They miss work, they miss purpose; whether their task was my own or the will of some other, uncaring force. They miss the orchards-- the small, vicious bite of thorns, the feel of fruit ripe and unbroken in my palm. I study the right one, pinching the callus where my caligripen used to rest, so many years that it wore into the skin. Childish practice, essays, reports-- drafts of proposals, my royal signature.  
Letters to you.

There is nothing for my hands but these crystalline keys; nothing for them to do but pour out words which will eventually betray me. There is nothing for me to do, Ani-- and we both know that has a purpose.

I've lost track of time again, a failure that tastes bitter in my mouth. The after taste stings, leaves me biting my lip bloody just to feel something else. I think I am going to die here, in this room, and I think Tarkin is going to watch.

I study the faintest changes of dye in my single oval rug, follow the twists of cheap, spartan fiber until it seems a maze in which one can become dizzy and lost. I feel along the walls for seams in the metal, in the pannels from which the glow-lamps emerge. I stick my lengthening fingernails into the few screws that can be found. Turn them 'til the nails break, and I bleed.

I have so far refrained from making patterns in the sparse red liquid, though I've been tempted. I try to hold myself above certain levels of pointlessness.

Re-qualify: there is nothing to do here but. How my mother disliked that word-- as children, she lectured Sola and I. _'Never say 'but', it offers an excuse'_. There's always a way around things. _However_. There's nothing to do here but entertain Tarkin; or, that is how he intents it. Even if he knew, I doubt he'd consider my obsessive, minute explorations of any value. And there's another word to handle carefully, gingerly, as if it might cut: "entertain". Not in the polite social sense-- though Tarkin maintains a veneer of this-- but in the most stark, the most banal. Blood sport and torn flesh. His bows and carefully measured words hide nothing. To him, I am a small animal trapped in a jar; each languishing moment to be recorded (perhaps relished?) and examined. Careful notations of organs shutting down, dementia setting in.  
Empathy simply does not enter into the equation.

I am down to one meal a day; tasteless, semi-firm molds of smooth grain noodle, which I often devour before I truly register I've taken it in my hands. Smooth as it is, it sticks in my throat, tastes as bland and unhelpful as the room around me. Time passes, and I lay on the floor, drawing my knees up to my breasts to ease the ache in my gut. Old wounds on the outside, new ones within. My body is consuming itself.

I allow no one to see this-- not the officer who brings my barren tray, not the stormtrooper who guards the fresher when I bathe. Most assuredly not Tarkin, who always inquires if I am well, if there is anything he can do for me. He circles in closer, ever the arachnid, and sometimes I think I see the black, metallic clattering of deathwatch beetles skittering behind his eyes. Always a courteous voice, little inflection, a sort of endless monotone as I struggle to hold my back straight, to remain still as the stone I feel my bones are petrifying to.  
_'Do you want for anything, Lady Vader?'_  
I always say no. He wants me to ask; for food, for mercy. I lay in my bunk and examine the situation academically. Whether he would give either upon request is immaterial-- he wants to me to ask, and so I will not. He works away at me like the blackest sea against the cliffs; unhurried, patient. I struggle to give him no appreciable sign of decay, I hold my head up and pray my strength will hold out until he leaves. And he always does, his officer's smile twisting, his hands digging at each other behind his back. He turns on his heel, his farewell curt and staccato, and the tray that comes eventually always contains a little less. On Naboo, the southern farmers annually faced a growing population of _hafe-ah_-- small, silver mammals that burrow into the shallow pools where lotus-bread grows. One end of a pack's tunnel would lead to the forrest, the other to wetlands, sometimes directly to a particular pond. Long ago-- before there where droids to herd the hafe-ah away, or breeders to control the population-- farmers dropped bundles of burning leaves into each tunnel, and lay in wait for the nervous, whisker-twitching refugees.  
I will not be smoked out.

I am so hungry, Ani. You just can't know.

Again, my mother's voice comes to me-- _'it can always get so much worse'_, she whispers, her body sheltering those of Sola and myself in the dusty cold of our city apartment. I never understood that; her cynicism, her bleak expectation in the face of both plenty and strife. Comparatively, those years in our tiny, desperately echoing apartment were few; the fault of famine, not lack of hard work on anyone's part. Finite, those nights of cold and faint hunger; the days of selling davi' fruit in the snow-dusted city streets. We had many more years,-- decades-- of comfort and stability on the farm; lazy seasons of security shot through, like veins of marble, with happiness, with real joy. And yet, my mother never wavered-- even lit with pleasure, her eyes always flickered to the corners and doorways, watchful against shadowy intruders. Hungry ghosts. _'It can always get worse'_-- etched into the very lines of her silhouette. _'So much worse, darling, so be prepared.'_ And it's true now, even if I never understood her then-- it hasn't been that long, and my body is just beginning to show true signs of the gnawing it commits within. I force myself to break off small pieces of noodle-paddie, hiding them under the mattress. I would give so much to eat them, to eat them all now, but who knows? There may come a day when these browning bars of noodle look a feast to me. When I look back on them with fondness and longing.

Oh Queens, oh Force, this will be a slow death for me.

_'But,'_ says a small voice in my mind.  
But what? I move in concentric circles, like the mysterious ebony grave wheels of the ancients, down towards a center no one can understand. My hands ache, my mind weaves like the hafe-ah, craving tunnels with no pattern, no sense. You come to me, so small and determined-- the warmth of Tatooine is on your skin. _'I am not a slave',_ you say. _'And neither are you.'_ Your hand is so small on my brow. Did I really once dance with you by the great bonfire on Bonta Eve, those boyish palms against my own?

I will eat my own flesh before I ask anything of Tarkin, before I give anything but the coldest, most distant response. That is certain, immutable; and so are the consequences of such. I am going to die, Ani.  
But. However.

Not my mother's voice now, but some humorless schoolteacher:  
_'There is no 'however' to be had.'_


	8. Triage

* * *

_**From Where Ever I Am To You 8/?**  
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory  
_

* * *

27:00 hours; Night Shift

There's a jump in my thoughts, a scrambling static. Like interference in the bluelight of a holo, I can feel it, though I do not necessarily know what it distorts. Above all, the sentient mind is about self-preservation; it will conceal, obscure, even cannibalize, if need be. I do not remember falling asleep, or even fainting. There is only the door closing over Tarkin's stiff back, and a dizziness that moved from my stomach outward, as if the axis of everything had been destroyed. When I woke, I was sprawled on the carpet, left arm twisted in an uncomfortable position. If I dreamed, the darkness 0f my mind swallowed it whole. My prison was the same; four walls, two doors, the bunk. And yet, in some fundamental way... everything had changed. 

Is this madness? All the lines and angles are the same-- the unhelpful lamps, the bare rug. The change I sense is abstract and terrifying, and I don't know if it's real. Something has been exposed, and the universe feels different, as if some powerful wave has lifted me so gradually that I almost didn't notice. The danger I feel, pressing against my skin, seems laughable. After all, it would be more remarkable if I were safe, such is the flavor of my existence. If my mind is consuming itself then this danger-- real or imagined-- will very shortly leave me no place else to go.  
Perception, Obiwan used to stress. No one sees reality for what it truly is. Doesn't matter if the danger is real or not-- your belief in it informs your actions, and thus your destiny. To see things without perception, to see bare reality, would drive any creature mad.  
Unfeeling thief. No wonder he didn't believe in the truth.  
The bare facts, as they say; the bare bones.  
Down to the bone.

We're here, aren't we, then? The end of the line. I've gone 'round and 'round, but I keep ending up here. Gingerly, superstitiously, I lift the rough cloth of my dress and touch the wound on my abdomen. The scarred skin has an odd texture, like a lace of burns, but the color is faintly pink. Like the flesh of an infant, and that discomfits me. It seems too vulnerable. It's healed up since my fingers last attacked it-- there are new lines, more faint, where the original wound was enlarged. Layers of damage. I keep doing that, opening it up, as if to ensure no one left something inside of me. By mistake or design, I feel there is a shard of You resting alongside my organs. My body compensates-- grows around it, makes it a part of me. Whether this is a piece of the You That Was or the thing that animates your corpse now, I do not know. Should it be nurtured as a legacy, or is it a consuming rot?  
The nails I have not broken off are long and untrimmed. I press the sharp point of my thumb into the center of the wound and begin to dig.  
It is, as you well know, better to be safe than sorry.

I don't remember a lot about the hospital, about the white time before the gray prison. They said I almost died, but I didn't notice. It is possible I am still dead, and have not been informed.  
I've been a bit out of the loop. 

I shouldn't have to tell you this story-- after all, you were there. You know, better than I, what transpired.  
Expired.  
But I will tell you, partly because my sense of completeness compels me, and partly because you may have witnessed something completely different. Obiwan has made me wary of the minds of others. That 'certain point of view'.  
Also, this is revenge, of a sort. Dissecting each moment without mercy reminds me not to linger on wishes or dreams. Any comfort is dangerous, that much is certain. Who am I more enraged with-- the you that has done this to me, or my younger shadow, who allowed herself to be so intimately betrayed? So, some of this is about vengeance, though whom exactly this takes vengeance on, I am less and less certain. 

Very well, then. 

Bail begged me not to heed the Emperor's summons. To take Leia to Alderaan, or someplace even further, to run and never stop, if it came to that.  
What was the use? I could not implicate Leia. Taking shelter at the Alderaanian Embassy was one thing, leaving with her was something else altogether. An odd sort of claim; it would bring scrutiny on her that even the most cleverly forged birth certificate would not withstand.  
'Then you can leave alone,' he said. 'Come to Alderaan when the Emperor's basilisk eyes are elsewhere'. His voice echoes in my mind, at first almost brotherly, slightly pleading. There's a carefulness in these early conversations, as well, as if I were made of glass. Then, as days passed, his words grew sharper, more unwieldy. 'Do you want to die?' he'd ask me. And, as if he were backed into a corner and not I, he lashed out-- 'Would you have Leia motherless?'  
He could not see that she already was. To him, claiming Breha as Leia's mother was a polite and necessary fiction. He could not see it for what it really was; an incantation gaining strength, becoming true over time. With practice. 

I think about Leia-- not the soft infant I carried against my breast, but the fierce, beautiful little girl I saw on the holo-proj. The one with the stubborn set of my chin; the one who dared look back at You. I see her standing in an Inferisum, one of Alderaan's white marble cities for the Dead. There is a pyre before her, and a sealed stained-glass coffin upon it, in which rests the body of Breha Organa. The seal preserves her body; the blue hues of the glass obscure the emptiness of her shell, allowing the comforting illusion of Eternal Sleep. Leia will bring flowers and prayer wheels here, for burning. In time, she will beg for favors or forgiveness with a careful pen, giving the parchment to the fire, to send it on to the Land of the Dead. She will confide in Breha's still form her darkest secrets; she may even beg her to heal a broken heart. She will say 'Mother', and it will be this still, glass-coffin doll she sees.  
I am not sure how I feel about that. 

But Leia will never ask, _'why did Mother leave me?'_. Breha died in childbirth, a fault attributed to no one, a miscellaneous evil, alighting where it may. She will not see my turned back, the trail of my veil and brocade, as I strode towards the Imperial Palace in the garb of a widowed Queen. She will never ask why I left her, that I might face the shadow of You. Moreover, she will not ask the truly dangerous question. Answers could be produced for the others, patched together from half-truths or manufactured wholesale. But what would there be for me to say if she came to me with her small hands to ask me why I married you? Worse still, not as a child, but as a young woman, no longer with the body of a sexless imp. In that ethereal young age between new emotion and the first wounded heart, she might ask the most damning question possible.  
_'He is a monster. Why did you let him touch you at all?'_  
I would be trapped then, with no other option but the truth. I would have to say the reason was love, and how could that stand in the face of all you've done?

Thank the Force for small mercies, you and Obiwan used to say.  
Mercies. Small ones; ones you can hold in the palm of your hand, smuggle beneath your gown, hide beneath your ribs.  
Concealed, and therefore easier to get away with.

Perhaps I should have concealed a weapon when I went before Palpatine, or attempted to conceal one. There seemed little point, though; he had already reached the heights of paranoia, those arid peaks only the most soulless of dictators come to know. A Sith, of all things; I think of him standing in the Theed Courtyard with that grandfatherly smile, and even now my heart warps with hatred. 

_'Be dead,'_ I thought at him, as the Red Guards ushered me down the long audience chamber. He was already small and crippled, the 'Almighty Emperor', eaten up from the inside out with the toxicity of his own power. I thought of Iratoth, the abandoned planet, the husk orbiting just a ways further out from Naboo's sun. Once, a race built towering spires there, chipped magnificent cities out of the sheer, rocky cliffs. What then? No one knows. There are only ruins now, saturated with radiation, glowing an eerie nightshade when the planet turns from the sun. A lifeless rock that killed even the Nubian explorers who discovered it. No less deadly now than it was all those centuries ago. Iratoth the Mute; Iratoth of carrion. 

_'Be dead,'_ I thought at Palpatine, whose only rightful kingdom was that wasteland of the damned. I shook with the force of it, my hateful wish. If he could deflect blasters and burst a Jedi's heart within their chest, then my only recourse was the old ways. Queens staining their breasts with blood of their enemies, riding into battle with every thought focused on death.  
The Force is in me, but not of me. It does not bend to my will. 

They brought me before him, and I would not yield. They threw me to the floor and I spat at his feet. 'Always such spirit,' Palpatine laughed, playing the grandfather again for one acidic, almost nostalgic moment. Beneath the cowl, his voice hardened; the voice of the patient snake, thinking only of itself and the eventual kill. 'You are beaten, Amidala. You have lost everything; you must know that you will die.'  
'You do not reign in the Other Kingdom,' I said, crouching, finally rising when the guards moved back to their posts. 'I should be happy to die, and be free from your yoke.'  
'Insolent _sukevar_!' he hissed, invoking an old Nubian word. A sukevar; a female warrior without allegiance, attacking the crown in a fruitless, suicidal show of defiance. A solider who does not know when to lay down her arms. The Nubian term grated against me, inspiring more anger-- not for its meaning, but for the odd intimacy it suggested. I could not stand that this man, who had taken his first breath on my beloved Naboo, had also blackened her skies.  
'You are a traitor in the worst way,' I spat. 'You should bleed to death on Nubian soil, so she can swallow you whole.' Another invocation of the past, an old curse said before impaling turncoats.  
Palpatine laughed-- a gluttonous, oozing sound. 'That is what Apinala said.' 

Poor Apinala. Blinded by Palpatine-- not metaphorically as I, but physically-- blackened sockets void and inarticulate as she was brought for execution. They hung her, and left her body swaying above the main gate to Theed. For five hundred years, Naboo knew no war. Palpatine brought merciless machines to the verdant fields. Worse still, he has brought back the taste of blood to walls that had forgotten it.

* * *

**TO BE CONTINUED**


End file.
